


The Sting

by itsxandy



Series: The Fedora Verse [4]
Category: DCU (Comics), The Flash (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Community: yj_anon_meme, Crime Fighting, Drama, Gen, M/M, Organized Crime, Prompt Fic, so much drama, will update tags as necessary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 14:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 42,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2776133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsxandy/pseuds/itsxandy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It took me over a year to finally figure out a title for this part. A summary's going to take a bit longer, I guess.</p><p>New readers, please don't judge me or even start here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Wally woke up early in the morning. It usually took him only a few moments to get up and about, but for the past week, he’d been feeling sluggish and slow to wake up. Not surprising. He gave himself an extra minute in bed before stretching his sleepiness away. As sore as his late night runs had recently been leaving him, they always made him feel better. A little. He took his bike halfway to school, ran the rest of the way to warm up his joints. He sat through his classes with practiced patience, ignoring the professor’s lectures in favor of reading newspaper and magazine articles he printed out beforehand and glancing at his cell phone every once in a while. Over the past week, he’d been looking at it less and less often.

By the time he’d finished all his classes, an entire day had passed without a single sign of Hunter, who was never lingering around outside of classrooms waiting for Wally anymore. There were no texts, no lunches, no brushes between classes. His absence left Wally feeling discomfited. Logically, he knew there should’ve been a bit of relief. Even if they had been on their way to being good friends, there was no more need to look over his shoulder, no underlying shame whenever he thought about the nature of his friendship with Hunter, and no need to acknowledge the guilt that accompanied Wally every time Hunter quietly fumbled with his crutches or swore under his breath.

He didn’t bother to stop by Hunter’s place; instead, Wally just headed straight to Barry’s. His mom was starting to recover more quickly now, and with a bit more rehab, she wouldn’t have to use that wheelchair anymore. Soon, they were going to be moving back to their old apartment. He had already taken advantage of his sudden increase in free time—on which nobody in his family had really commented on—to fix things up before their move. In a fit of productivity, he managed to sweep and dust the apartment, double-checking for any signs of broken furniture that he might’ve missed after his father brought the Blue Trinity inside.

He had more or less finished the task in a single afternoon. There was no feeling of accomplishment upon completion, but... he had too much on his plate to waste time contemplating that. Losing a friend was not the end of the world. This wasn’t the first time it had happened, and Wally had already proven to himself that he could get over it this time again.

He would get over it. 

Wally noted with some pride that he’d gotten better at running long-distance. He could make it as far as Tennessee now before his legs even began to shake, and every night, he returned to Central with wads of cash and fistfuls of jewelry stuffed into his pockets.

Temptation always filled him on the way back home. He wanted to see Hunter, shout at him, demand to know why he was getting the cold shoulder. What had he done to deserve this? He wanted to laugh, because for all the bravado the Kid displayed, Wally couldn’t bring himself to do it. 

He’d done a lot of things.

He gave into his temptation, just a little, just this night, and stood outside of Hunter’s apartment apartment. The lights were out. Of course they were. Hunter was probably asleep. Wally stood outside on the sidewalk, feeling vaguely stalkerish until suddenly burst of vindictiveness swelled inside of his chest. If Wally ran fast enough, if he really pushed himself, the force of his passing could leave rocking winds that would rattle cars. He toyed with the idea of activating all the alarms.

“Look at me,” he muttered under his breath, hands in his pockets. His fingers toyed with a gold ring from his latest haul that, frankly, he didn’t know what to do with but had been shiny enough to grab. “Come and get me.”

He didn’t like this feeling. This irrational, pointless behavior gnawed at him. The indignance of being tossed aside left him understandably hurt, but what did he expect to accomplish, standing outside Hunter’s apartment complex like a jilted ex? He needed to either do something about it or move on.

Or chicken out and just text him again, hoping for a response. Yeah, that seemed right.

Wally gritted his teeth and walked away. Insanity was repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.

This was going to drive him crazy.

* * *

“I haven't seen you here in a while.”

Hunter looked up at Ashley, who stood by his seat with a notepad in her hand.

“Coffee,” he muttered in response, fiddling with the napkin and silverware in front of him. “And I stopped by last week.”

“I meant I haven't seen you in this spot,” Ashley said, motioning towards his booth. “You've been taking everything to go. I haven't seen much of you and your new friend around. Anything to eat? You're here a little earlier than usual, so we're still serving dinner meals, so I can get you a burger. Sandwich. Oh, or soup since it’s starting to get a little chilly and all.”

“Actually, maybe dessert,” Hunter said. “Whatever you have, I don’t really care.”

“Bad day, huh?” she asked with a snort. Ashley walked over to the counter and started going through the glass case, glancing up frequently to gauge his mood and the right dessert for it until she picked up one of the chocolate cakes. “You know, you were disgustingly healthy when we were dating. I think Wally’s a bad influence on you,” she teased.

Hunter’s already dour mood continued to crumble. “Not a problem any more, I guess.”

Ashley immediately frowned. “Oh no. Hunter, what did you  _do_?”

He gave her an annoyed grunt in response, and Ashley shook her head, still looking a little concerned, and began putting together the rest of his order.

“You know,” she said over the counter as she pulled out a cup, “just coming out and saying sorry can solve a lot of problems.”

“Okay, what makes you think it was me?” Hunter asked. Ashley stood on her tiptoes and stared at him over the coffee machines until he finally relented. “...Okay. Yeah, it was me,” he relented. “But it's not as simple as that.”

“All right,” Ashley said, after several moments of contemplation as she set up his coffee and cake. She carried both to Hunter’s table and slid into the booth across from him. “I'll take that as a challenge.”

“I nearly got him killed.” The words escaped his lungs before he could correct himself and downplay the incident.

Ashley was quiet for a moment. If she was surprised by his actions, she hid it well, and he could see only a margin of curiosity flickering behind her eyes before she closed them and shook her head. “Groveling,” she finally said with a note of decisiveness in her voice.

“What?”

“Show Wally that you're sorry and do some groveling. Lots and lots of groveling,” Ashley said. “You're persuasive when you're on your knees.”

“You're not funny,” Hunter said, ignoring the teasing smirk. Acknowledging the joke any further would only encourage her. He was somewhat relieved that she didn't question what it was Hunter had been up to that had put them in so much danger, but the fact that she could still read him well enough to know what he just couldn't talk about was only a small consolation.

That mental acuity was the reason why he had broken things off with her. Ashley had been too sharp. Too close to the truth, and the thought of her eventually coming to the conclusion that he was Zoom... Hunter pushed those thoughts to the side. He had salvaged his and Ashley's friendship. He wanted advice on what to do with  _Wally_.

“I bet  _Wally_  would appreciate it,” she said. 

“He isn't the one I'd have to make up with. If it was a matter of apologizing to him, this whole matter would be over in a second,” Hunter said. “I don't think he even realizes or cares about what I did. No, it's his family.”

“Oh, family always makes for terrible drama,” Ashley said sympathetically. “At least Barry's got your back, right?” Hunter had been sure his expression hadn't changed in response to the comment. Maybe it had been his  _lack_  of reaction that gave it away. Regardless of how she knew, she just did. “ _Oh_ ,” she said. “Oh wow, but you and Barry've been friends for... how long now?”

“About six years,” he told her. “But Wally's mother is right. I put him in danger and didn't think twice about it.” Even worse, though he'd never admit it aloud and certainly not to Barry, Hunter wondered if it had been a deliberate, if subconscious, mistake, using Wally's presence to draw Cold out into the open.

“You're agreeing with them?” Ashley asked, looking a little disapproving of the fact. She grabbed the edge of Hunter's plate, prepared to withhold the rest of the cake for information. “If you're not going to do anything, then why are you even here?”

“For the food,” Hunter said. 

“You expect me to believe that? You  _never_  come by and sit down just for food unless you want company, and the only time you ever want  _my_  company nowadays is if you  _need_  it.”

“That's not true.”

“That's total bullshit. I'm not offended, Hunter, just tell me why you're here.” 

She waited patiently for his response as Hunter ground his teeth in agitation. This drama, it was all unpleasant. His civilian life used to be simpler than this. He barely  _had_  one, after all. 

Barry was hardly a problem. The man was naturally good-natured, and getting back on his mentor’s good side was just a matter of behaving himself long enough for the issue to fall from the forefront of his mind. It would cost him Wally's company, but he was essentially solving the problem in the simplest way possible. Sometimes, it was just better to cut out a knot than to try and untangle the mess by hand.

The thought of a simpler life that didn't need much tending to had its appeal, but Hunter couldn't harness much enthusiasm at the thought of going back to it. And Wally wasn't making it any easier.

“I could deal with all of this a lot more easily if it weren't for Wally. He’s making it hard for me, and I'm not sure how to deal with him,” Hunter finally said.

“What do you mean by that?” Ashley asked. 

Hunter stretched out, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and passing it to Ashley. “He's been calling me. Still texting me. I don't know what to tell him.”

“What's wrong with the truth?” Ashley asked as she fiddled with the phone, entering his password and going through his call record. 

“It’s the logical thing to do, but from his perspective, it’ll probably make his family look bad,” Hunter said. “I mean, it's not unreasonable. If something puts your kid in danger, you keep him away from it.”

“I'd delve into the fact that you're comparing yourself to an 'it' and all it’s psychological implications, but I’m not prepared to open  _that_  can of worms,” she said idly, her attention still focused on his phone. “Just lay it all out for him. The facts. His family may have had some influence in the factor, but what you're doing is ultimately your choice and he should respect the fact  _you are a dick_.”

He started a bit at the sudden veer in animosity in Ashley's voice. 

“What—?”

Ashley continued flipping through his information before finally showing him the list of texts from Wally. “I  _thought_  you were just blowing him of—” she muttered, only to cutting herself off and shove Hunter’s cell phone in front of his nose, fixing him with an angry glare. “Did you  _not_  answer any of Wally's texts?”

“Yeah, I... okay, well no, but I didn't know what to say,” he said quickly, snatching the phone from her hands and pocketing it in one swift, though jerky, motion. Fear, he decided, was a natural and appropriate reaction to Ashley's expression.

“Wally is concerned. He's scared. The two of you have been attached at the hip for  _months_  now and all of a sudden, you're not talking to him. Avoiding his calls? Ignoring his texts? It might be easier for you to go cold turkey, but leaving him in the dark is just cruel. To him, this isn't protection. It's punishment. He's going to think he's done something wrong,” she said firmly. 

Hunter opened his mouth to argue, but one look at her, calm and unyielding but still carrying a slight hint of regret in her eye, and he knew better than to argue against her experience.

“Ash, I never meant...” Hunter started, but she shook her head. 

“Let's not go there,” she said firmly. “It's old news, I'm tired, and you've got better things to do. I don't care what you tell him, just let him know things are okay. He doesn't deserve to be left in the dark with his own thoughts like this. It’s agony.”

Hunter nodded and took his phone back from her. “You've always been a big help,” he said, getting up and hugging her goodbye. This was the calmest he'd felt in days. “I don't know why you put up with me.”

“Because I love you,” she sighed a little wistfully. Hunter knew the romance was gone between them. Their attempt at getting back together had been halfhearted at best, but they had fallen into a friendly default, and their mutual fondness was still going strong.

“It's a pity things didn't work out between us,” Hunter said, leaving a few folds of dollar bills on the table. “Why did we break up?”

He picked up the coffee to finish it off, and Ashley covered his hand with her own, squeezing them affectionately. “Because you have a thing for the cock,” she said bluntly. 

He would’ve been able to take the comment in stride if it hadn’t completely come out of left field and if he hadn’t been drinking, but it had and he had, and the next thing he knew, he was coughing up coffee. 

“Jesus, Ashley,” he muttered once he managed to clear his throat. He quickly grabbed several napkins to clean up the small mess he’d left behind, even though it felt like it was entirely her fault.

“Am I wrong?” she asked, picking up her cash and started counting her earnings for today. An especially large tip for her word of advice and her company. He never made an issue of it, and Ashley never refused the extra money she made as an unofficial consultant. 

He thought it over carefully for a moment before shrugging and shaking his head. “If you’re implying that that’s the only thing I’m interested in,” he corrected. 

“Fair enough,” Ashley nodded. “I was just throwing it out there. I’ve always wondered about those super secret files on your computer you never want me to see.”

“Let’s not go there again,” Hunter said, though he could feel a small smile forming on his face. Ashley didn’t bother hiding hers, looking glad that his mood was beginning to lighten. “But really, why the, ah…?”

“Questioning?” she finished for him. 

“Yeah. It’s not as if I’m flamboyant or anything,” he said. But then, he ran around town in bright yellow and red tights. 

“Well, we always seemed to have the same interests,” she joked. “Well, there were a few things here and there, but basically I guessed. It was pretty invasive of me, though. Sorry.”

Hunter shrugged. “I’ve been worse.”

Ashley scoffed. “Anyway, I was a  _lot_  more certain after I met Wally. And after this conversation in general.”

“We’re not a couple,” Hunter said unnecessarily. Ashley wouldn’t make a mistake like that. 

“No, but you were a bit unusually close to him for someone who was just a friend, but you were both weird about it. Not a good solid sign of a relationship on the downlow, but like I said, it was a guess, plus my gut instinct from when I saw Wally in your room,” Ashley said, with a shrug. “You were always really territorial.”

“That is guesswork,” Hunter accused. “Completely unprofessional.”

“Yeah, that’s why I threw that dick comment out there,” she said.

“Even  _more_  unprofessional.  _And_  cheap,” he said accusingly. “You could’ve just asked.”

“But it wouldn’t have been nearly as fun as seeing the look on your face,” she said. “But, really, Hunter, when we started falling apart, I called you for... three days, tops, before giving up on trying to get you back. If your call history's anything to go by, it's been over a week, and Wally's still trying to talk to you. He is  _dedicated_  to you. Are you really going to give that up?”

“That kind of ' _dedication_ ' was what put him in danger in the first place,” Hunter said, “and I think he's better off getting over it.”

Ashley looked a little disappointed. “But  _you're_  better off with  _him_ ,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Still, it's not my business, I guess. I'm not going to interfere.”

A part of Hunter wished she  _would_. 

The rest of him squashed that wishfulness and pushed it to the side. He had other responsibilities, and he couldn't waste any of them worrying over Wally any more than he already did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so seriously, apologies for the yearlong hiatus and apologies for this: I am not ready for weekly updates. This is not my triumphant return, this is just a first chapter and a cry for help. Like, really, I'm looking for a beta or two or three. I'm going to (TRY) to get back to writing, starting maybe this Friday if I'm not reeling from sleep deprivation. pandoress, your offer got me off my ass (well, not really but I am more in gear than I previously was), so you've got first dibs if you're still interested. I've got some testing this week, but after that, if I hit the ground running, maybe I can churn something out before Christmas or New Years. 
> 
> On a side note, this story isn't my favorite out of the series, and I'm not fond of this chapter either. The intro feels too much like filler, and Ashley's role in the scene really irks me. I fixed it the best I could, but I don't know.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, guys.

While he never saw the purpose in having such a high-maintenance, unnecessarily expensive hideout, Barry couldn’t deny the fact that the Watchtower had its perks. He didn’t have any such sort of hideout in Central, unless they were counting his and Iris’s entertainment room, but things at home had been a little tense since Wally’s near-fatal accident with the Rogues. While he and Iris hadn’t exactly fought over it, she had certainly been vocal in her distaste for how he and Wally’s mother had handled the situation, but what could she expect? Hunter had been  _reckless_  with Wally’s safety. The both of them had been careless, too young and brash and eager to find some trouble.   
  
Barry never even wanted a sidekick.   
  
It was a sentiment he never really expressed aloud. Hunter didn’t need to feel unwanted. Barry liked Hunter. He was family.   
  
But he was also a kid. A kid who came to Barry’s broken and unstable with uncontrollable powers, and there was no one else qualified to look after a kid with the ability to manipulate time aside from superheroes whom time was not as big an issue.   
  
And now, Hunter grew up fighting and saving people and constantly in danger and, for a long time, he  _thrived_. As proud as Barry was, Hunter was too eager to fight. Jay didn’t see that, but Jay was a hero from a different era where the bad guys were undeniably bad guys and the simplest solution was to simply pulverize them. Hunter was the grandson he never had a chance to have, and he could do no wrong in Jay’s eyes.  
  
Barry wandered through the Watchtower’s halls, stopping once to look out the window. From here, he could see the Earth. Somewhere down there, his family was going on about their daily business. Which currently involved not talking to each other.   
  
“You seem to have a lot on your mind.”  
  
He looked up to see Hal walking up to him and shrugged. The two of them automatically began walking alongside each other, Hal waiting patiently for Barry to gather his thoughts and say what was on his mind.   
  
“A lot of things have been happening lately,” he finally told him.   
  
“Trouble in paradise?”  
  
“I wouldn’t exactly call it paradise,” Barry said. “Keeping up with the crime rate’s getting pretty difficult. It keeps fluctuating, and with Zoom out of commission, it’s been pretty difficult.”  
  
Hal nodded sagely. “Ah, and that’s what’s got you down in the dumps, huh? Need a little Green Lantern light to help you on your way?” he asked, holding up his fist, and the ring on his finger emitted a bright green glow at the attention.   
  
“No, it’s not that, actually,” Barry admitted. “It’s just… Hunter’s being reckless.”  
  
Hal smirked. “So back to normal now?”  
  
“It’s not a good thing,” Barry insisted. “As much as I’d love to see Hunter getting back on his feet… if he were to do it, I’d rather him have an actual functional pair of feet underneath him. There was an attack in Central recently. Heat Wave and Captain Boomerang were causing a ruckus and Red Arrow and Aquarius were helping handle it. Hunter’s not even in costume and decides to help out when there’s only so much he can do.”  
  
“So far, sounds alright to me,” Hal said. “Guessing things didn’t go too smoothly?”  
  
“My nephew was with him. And the two of them… I swear, they bring out the best in each other, but I wonder if they bring out the worst in each other too. It’s like Hunter and Roy all over again.”  
  
“Only hopefully less fistfights,” Hal joked, though the two of them had never gone that far. As much as the two of them had once fought, they had also been the best of friends.   
  
“Definitely less fistfights,” Barry said. “I’m pretty sure Hunter knows exactly how I will react if that ever happens. But now, it’s… at least with Hunter and Roy, they had Kaldur to help keep them from making bad decisions, and whenever they managed to rope Kaldur into it too, they had the skills to back out safely. Hunter was on crutches, and Wally’s a civilian. He was reckless. Wally’s mother wanted some punishment, but I’m not his father, and Jay’s not going to punish his precious boy. I can’t ground him, but I do have enough authority to tell him that he and Wally need to take a step back to think about what they’ve done.”  
  
“You do realize that Hunter doesn’t have a lot of friends…” Hal started.   
  
“Don’t remind me,” Barry said. He scratched his head. “You know, I really thought he was ready to step up his game. Join the League. Be his own hero. But you know, I just… it’s kind of disheartening to see him make mistakes like these.”  
  
“Welcome to fatherhood, Barry.”  
  
“What would you know about that, Hal?” Barry asked, recognizing Hal’s attempt to lighten the situation as the two of them walked into the mess hall.   
  
“Flash,” Dinah waved them over from her seat halfway across the dining room. Barry and Hal walked over to sit with her. She gestured to Bruce, who was sitting across from her. “We were just talking about you. And Zoom. And from what I’m hearing GL say, you were too.”  
  
“Yeah? And what’ve you been saying about us?” Barry asked, though he had a feeling he knew what this was about.  
  
“Well, I heard through the grapevine that Zoom ran into a little bit of trouble. These past few days, I’ve had all the kids coming to me asking if Zoom’s spoken to me,” she said. “And I’m asking myself, how should I know?”  
  
Barry couldn’t help but smile slightly. There weren’t a lot of people aware of Hunter’s teen crush on his combat instructor.  
  
“I swear, your kid must’ve studied behavioral science just to throw me off every session,” she shook his head. “He never tells me much, and what I can gleam from him usually seems carefully crafted.”  
  
“He’s always liked having his own private headspace,” Barry said. “What’ve you been telling them?”  
  
“That I know as much as they do? Less? I didn’t even hear about the whole mess until the kids told me about it. How is Zoom? How are  _you_?”  
  
“He’ll live,” Barry said firmly. “And I’m okay. Stressed out, but okay. I feel sorry for Mary though, though. She’s my sister in law. Now  _she_  seems stressed, and considering all she’s been through, I don’t blame her. That woman needs a vacation.” Then, remembering whose company he was in, he eyed Bruce. “Don’t take that seriously.”  
  
(“I might take that seriously.”   
  
Barry stared at Bruce a long and hard stare. It was  _really_  hard to tell when the caped crusader was joking.)  
  
“Like… I feel  _bad_ ,” Barry said. “Things haven’t gone well for Hunter. I don’t know if telling him he can’t see Wally for a while was the right move, but what can I do? I can’t tell him he’s off patrols or the team. His leg’s broken, he’s off the roster regardless of what I do. I can’t ground him, he… doesn’t even have much of a social life anyway. Plus, he’s an adult who pays his own bills.”  
  
“…Your kid’s actually grown up,” Hal said, as if it were only hitting him just now and he hadn’t been joking about it for years.   
  
“And, if the team’s gossip is actually accurate, kind of has a thing for your other kid,” Dinah added.   
  
The statement was met with silence as Barry struggled to find the words to respond with.   
  
“Can you… not phrase it that way?” Barry asked weakly. “And what do you mean has a thing for Wally?”  
  
“Admittedly, M’gann is better at pulling intel out of bad guys than teammates and is not the most reliable source of information in this situation,” she said, “but considering the possibility he may’ve been, um… showing off or just too afraid of looking less than heroic in front of Wally may lend some credence to her theory.”  
  
Barry groaned. “Nothing about this situation feels good.”  
  
“I could be wrong,” Dinah offered.   
  
“You could be  _right_ ,” Barry replied, briefly laying his head down on the table. He lifted it up after only a moment. “He is going to be the death of me.”  
  
“It’s not that bad,” Hal pointed out.   
  
“It’s not,” Barry agreed. “But there’s just too much going on at the same time. What do I do about that?”  
  
“Well, you know, Hunter has been growing up and making mistakes and, yeah, going through a rough learning process, but that’s kind of the beauty of the whole thing,” Dinah told him.   
  
“I’m not following.”  
  
“Hunter gets to fix his own mistakes,” Batman said bluntly. “Don’t sweat it when you have bigger things to deal with. We noticed the major spike in Central City’s crime.”  
  
“Yeah. Captain Frye’s got us all working overtime. Everyone at the lab’s been swamped.”  
  
“I know. I checked your work records. But even when you’re not working overtime, you haven’t exactly spent a lot of time on patrol.”  
  
“Are you investigating me?”  
  
“I just find it curious that even now that your workload is over three times its original amount, you have time to spread the ground that you patrol to cities hundreds of miles away.”  
  
“Look, everyone gives you your space whenever you’re dealing with your Gotham buddies. We respect that you want to deal things your own way. But can you at least show us the same courtesy?”  
  
“St. Louis? Sedalia? Minneapolis? That’s not in Central,” Batman said. “You have far more duties than simply chasing after one lone thief.”  
  
“What’s he talking about?” Hal asked.   
  
“The speedster that kicked out Hunter’s knee,” Dinah concluded. “Barry’s still trying to track him down.”  
  
“At the expense of his own city. Aside from Zoom’s extended absence, the infrequency of the Flash’s appearances are making your criminals bolder and more active. The Kid is elusive—”  
  
“He’s not. He’s a  _kid_. He’s smart and knows how to take basic countermeasures against forensics, but he’s inexperienced, and he’ll make a mistake sooner or later.”  
  
“And in that time, your city will end up falling into disrepair. Insurance rates and costs of living will increase. People can be hurt by your inaction in more ways than one. Remember that.”  
  
Reminded of what happened to his nephew and his family, Barry fell silent. Batman was right, of course. He couldn’t let his own personal desire for justice affect his decisions like that. It just pained Barry to think that he was giving up on finding the criminal who nearly ended Hunter’s career. As important as Hunter was to him, he couldn’t prioritize a grudge over the safety of real, living people.   
  
“I need to go back to Central,” Barry finally declared, standing up from the table. While technically nothing had changed from when he’d first beamed up to the tower and he hadn’t made any major decisions, he felt as if a weight had been lifted off his chest.

* * *

Typical. It had taken Wally weeks to get used to having an actual friend, and just as he was starting to  _really_  enjoy it, he somehow managed to majorly mess everything up. Not only was Hunter ignoring him, but Aunt Iris and Uncle Barry were oddly closed-mouth on the subject as well, neither of them engaging in the any topic that really interested him.

  
Admittedly, topics of interests had switched from science and technology to why Hunter was dead set on avoiding him now. His initial guess was that Hunter had gotten hurt and it was an injury that Zoom couldn’t be associated with, thus ducking away from Wally’s inevitable questions. The explanation didn’t answer all the oddities and raised a few more questions in the process, but it had been enough to stave off Wally’s anxiety for the past few days.   
  
Yet as the silence stretched out without any sign of a cover story from Hunter or Uncle Barry about what was going on, his imagination began to take a less pleasant, more paranoid turn.   
  
Had he done something wrong? Mid-stride, Wally stopped in the middle of the hallway and shook his head. Okay, yeah, dumb question. But what was it that Hunter was mad about?   
  
Wally chewed at the edge of his lip, mentally compiling the list of all the different reasons he had come up with in the past few days. A faint wave of nausea roiled up in his stomach, and Wally resisted the urge to pace faster. He was pretty sure his mom was already getting a little concerned with his restlessness.  
  
It had been less than a day since he and his mom moved out of his aunt and uncle’s and back to their old apartment. His mother had insisted on it now that she could move without the assistance of a wheelchair and was slowly working her way from crutches to a cane. Despite Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris’ reassurances that they were always welcome at the Allen household, his mom was determined to get back on her own two feet—in both the literal and metaphorical sense—and avoid overstaying their welcome.   
  
As much as a relief as it was to escape the vestigial guilt of living in the home of the Flash, Wally didn’t feel much more comfortable in his own home either, where his own father had robbed him months before. No matter how many times he had checked for chipped furniture and swept up nonexistent splinters, living there no longer felt  _right_. The apartment almost looked exactly as it had when Mary had left it, though if she noticed the addition of a new deadbolt lock to the front door or the new safe purchased and bolted into the bottom of their cupboard, she didn’t mention it. Wally didn’t want his mom to question his growing discomfort in his own home and did his best to ignore his own restlessness.  
  
But his best apparently wasn’t good enough. After walking up and down the hallway, his mother intercepted him before he could go back to his room, grabbing his arm and catching his attention.   
  
“Wally?” She looked worried. A little guilty, even, which made no sense because it wasn’t as if she’d done anything. “You’ve been pacing around the house all day,” she finally said after several moments of looking unsure of what to say. “Maybe you should go out, let out some of that steam. You’ve been cooped up all week.”   
  
Only because she was unaware of his late-night trips to surrounding cities and states. He had no problem spending excess energy. It was just the fact that, even with all his recent productivity, he still felt like the day had been  _wasted_. Wally wasn’t stupid. He knew why.  
  
He missed the quiet camaraderie that came with being the only two people in that small apartment, and he missed the mindless banter that came whenever Wally brought over a movie. Hunter didn’t share a lot of his own movies. Didn’t _have_  a lot of his own, he claimed, after growing up without the pastime. Wally hadn’t even had a chance to share his old copy of  _Planet of the Apes_. Shame. It was a classic.   
  
He missed Hunter, he wasn’t going to deny that. But worse than that, he didn’t even know why Hunter wasn’t speaking to him anymore.   
  
Worst case scenario, Hunter had somehow linked his identity to the Kid’s and it was only a matter of time before both Zoom and the Flash came for him. But it had been over a week now, a week spent in suspense and looking over his shoulder. The first few days, he had been tempted to just pack his things and run. Now, he was just confused and frustrated and almost hoping Zoom  _had_ found out about the Kid.   
  
And all things considered, being ignored wasn’t the worst thing that could happen with Hunter’s vendetta against crime.  
  
“Wally,” his mom repeated herself, pressing a hand up against Wally’s forehead. She had to reach up to do it, something Wally still hadn’t gotten used to. “Are you okay?”  
  
Great. He was worrying her.   
  
“Sorry, zoned out. I guess I’m just a little out of it,” he admitted. He gave her a small smile, unsure of what else he could do to soothe her worries. “I’m just going to go to bed early.”  
  
Mary didn’t look completely satisfied with his vague response or the fact that he’d done the exact opposite of what she suggested, but with a one-armed hug, she told him not to stress out over little things and to focus on his schoolwork.   
  
Wally retreated back to his room, falling backwards onto his bed and staring at the ceiling. He contemplated taking the night off and sleeping in. In the past week, he had accumulated more money than most people made in a year and ran farther than he had ever dared on a school night with his mother sleeping just a few rooms down the hall.   
  
Pent up frustrations, sleepless nights, and lowered appetites. The Kid could hang up his hat for tonight. Wally needed some sleep.   
  
Wally rolled over, staring at the cell phone on the stand next to his bed and wondering whether or not it was worth calling Hunter one last time today. He must’ve looked pathetic, clinging to the only friend he had outside his family. He _felt_  pathetic. The most pathetic teenage prodigy who ever became a superthief.   
  
'Yeah,' Wally thought to himself, reaching for his cell phone. 'It could be worse.'  
  
He picked up his phone, prepared to lower himself to calling Hunter for what must have been the hundredth time, and saw something he hadn’t seen in maybe a year now. An alert for two missed calls and a voice mail. Hunter?  
  
He opened the voice mail and grinned, hearing Hunter’s voice on the other end of the line, fumbling over words as he always did because he never really liked using the phone.   
  
 _“…general consensus that I’m kind of a dumbass lately. Well, a lot of the time, but mostly lately. I was wondering if we could talk about that.”_  
  
By the end of the message, Wally already had a pair of jeans on, a foot inside the apartment complex, and the vague worry that he should have bought some deodorant just in case the scent of desperation was a little too strong.   
  
He jogged up the stairs and the moment he stepped out of the stairwell, the elevator next to him dinged as Hunter stepped out, holding a cup of coffee and a to-go box with a familiar bakery logo stamped on the side of the plastic bag.  
  
“Wally?” he looked surprised to see him, despite his phone calls.  
  
“I, um, got your message,” Wally said, holding up his phone.   
  
Hunter closed his eyes and shook his head. “Sorry, when I called, I meant… well, I thought you’d just call me back,” he said, and Wally was overcome by wash of embarrassment. Of course he did. Normal people needed phones because trekking across the city for a conversation took too long. Not for Wally. He hadn’t thought about it.   
  
“I was in the area,” he said lamely, though it sounded honest enough coming out of his mouth.   
  
“Right. Good. I didn’t want you to have come all this way for a short conversation,” Hunter said. “I um… lately, I’ve been kind of a dick. I should’ve called you back.” He paused and then let out a small huff of laughter. “Sorry, it just sounded like we were dating or something.”  
  
He was right. Something about it didn’t feel so amusing though. The week spent wondering if Hunter had found out one of his secrets didn’t help, but Wally smiled weakly in response.   
  
“…You got hurt because of me,” Hunter finally broke the silence, just moments before it got awkward.   
  
“What?”  
  
“The Rogues. When you and I were looking for Captain Cold, I knew it was dangerous, and I still let you follow after me,” he said.   
  
“But I didn’t get hurt,” Wally lied. His body still ached, but he had mostly recovered from the various burns, bruises, and small infection. Nothing a small pharmacy raid wouldn’t fix, right?   
  
“Well, you  _should’ve_. It must’ve been some kind of miracle that you didn’t…” Hunter trailed off, and Wally felt a stab of fear that he was suspicious as to why.  
  
“What does this have to do with the last week?” he asked, pushing the conversation along as subtly as he could. It wasn’t hard to do, after all. It had been the mystery that had been bothering him the entire time.  
  
“It’s the reason I’ve been kind of… avoiding you,” he said. “I  _can’t_  have any more repeats.”  
  
“Wait, you didn’t want to talk to me because you’re worried I’ll put myself in danger with you again?” Wally asked. “Then why don’t you just tell me not to do it next time? Or, better yet,  _not_  run into a fight with a broken leg and a pair of crutches?”  
  
“If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t  _care_  if you put yourself in danger,” he explained. “But you’re not just a friend. You’re Barry’s kid, the nephew of someone I’ve been friends with for years. Nearly losing you… no,  _losing you_ brought some of my, ah, character flaws into light. Barry wasn’t really happy with what I did.”  
  
Wally winced. He hadn’t thought about those repercussions; he didn’t mean to get Hunter in trouble. At least it made sense why Barry and Iris were hesitant to bring the subject up.  
  
“Sorry,” he said. “I won’t do that again.  
  
“Don’t… apologize,” Hunter gritted out. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m supposed to be the responsible one. And Barry was just doing what he had to do.”  
  
“…You lost me again. What did Barry do?” Wally asked.   
  
“He asked me to stay away.”  
  
“ _What?_ ” Wally asked, immediately enraged.   
  
“Don’t be upset with him, it’s not his fault. Your mother—”  
  
“My  _mom_?” he echoed. The guilty, pitying looks, the lack of questions as to why he wasn’t spending time with Hunter any more, it made sense if she knew the source of his moping all along.   
  
“I nearly got you killed. It was only a miracle that you managed to get away from the Rogues mostly unscathed. Maybe Barry told your mother about my track record, I don’t know, but she is completely right to want to keep me away from you. She told Barry she doesn’t feel like you’re safe around me, and he agreed, and the least we can do is respect their decision.”  
  
“ _No_.” Wally said firmly. “I don’t care what they think!”  
  
“Well  _I_  do,” Hunter said unwaveringly, fixing Wally with a steadfast stare. But he didn’t need the added effect of the look, because his words alone were enough to force Wally to back off. They stung a bit more than they should have. Hunter hadn’t meant anything by what he said, but the words had struck a chord in Wally, stirring old memories and implications concerning his and Hunter’s friendship.   
  
“Maybe I can talk to my mom then,” Wally said. “Or Uncle Barry. He’ll listen—”  
  
“No.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You’re a good friend, Wally,” he said. “I mean, you’re… great. But I’m always the first to jump headfirst into a fight, even when it affects the people I’m with, and that’s not something I’m going to change. I just don’t think it’s worth the effort.”  
  
That  _hurt_. The familiar words were almost enough to make him believe in silly things like karma. It was like a punch to the gut and all he could do was try to breathe and figure out if Hunter was saying what Wally thought he was saying.  
  
At that point, Hunter had frozen, mouth slightly opened from his last word as he struggled with what to say next. He started again, looking as if he only just thought about what he had said and maybe ( _maybe maybe maybe maybe_ ) realizing it had come out wrong and he didn’t mean it that way. Didn’t mean that their friendship wasn’t worth a few minutes of conversation with a man he had known and worked with for five years.   
  
“I think we should at least just take some time to let things cool off with your family,” Hunter started to amend at the last minute, but Wally didn’t give him a chance to finish talking. He turned to the side and pressed the button for the elevator to go down. The conversation was becoming too familiar, and if he kept on having to listen to it…  
  
Too late. His thoughts wandered back to Blue Valley, his own words being inadvertently tossed back into his own face.  _“Just wait until things tide over and everyone forgets.”_  Wally knew how this was going to end. Next thing he’d know, Hunter would be telling him, they’d pick the pieces back up once the controversy was forgotten.  
  
Except they  _weren’t_  going to just pick things back up. By then, too many feelings would’ve been hurt and unresolved, and they’d just end up growing apart.  
  
“No.”  
  
“Wally, I’m sorry, don’t… will you just  _wait_  a—?”  
  
If that was the way Hunter was going to try and play things, it wasn’t going to work, and Wally wasn’t going to shoot himself in the foot again, wasting time and thinking things were going to get better. Wally jabbed the elevator button two more times, doing his best to ignore whatever Hunter was saying now, before hitting the panel viciously, much to Hunter’s surprise. Wally took advantage of Hunter’s momentary shock and stormed off into the stairwell.   
  
Or tried to, anyway.   
  
The escape was somewhat hampered by the presence of another person, and Wally ended up running straight into someone’s chest. Storming off generally lost its dramatic effect when one ended up landing on his ass.   
  
“Roy,” Hunter said, his tone cooler than Wally had ever heard it before.   
  
“Hunter,” he replied, equally frigid but with a slightly sharper bite in his tongue. He looked down at Wally, and appeared to be making a conscious effort to soften his expression. It didn’t help much, but he offered a hand and Wally took it, pulling himself upright. “I need to talk to you.”  
  
“I’m in the middle of something,” Hunter said, trying to get to Wally, but Wally stepped back.  
  
“Whatever you have left to say, I’m pretty sure this guy isn’t interested,” Roy shot. “If you want to keep talking to him, you have to get through me first.”  
  
Hunter attempted to push past Roy, but the newcomer had instead leaned forward, his forearm against the frame of the door, blocking Hunter from passing.  
  
“Get out of my way,” Hunter growled.   
  
“I don’t take orders from you,” Roy snorted. “ _Nobody_  takes orders from you.”  
  
“You were eavesdropping.”  
  
“I was concerned,” Roy said, planting himself firmly between Wally and Hunter. “By your harrassment of this guy, I mean. I really think you should just leave him alone. He’s had enough of you.”  
  
“I could make you move without breaking a sweat,” Hunter said in a tone that sounded a little too threatening for comfort.  
  
“I don’t doubt that. Of course, that’s not taking into account performance anxiety.” Roy glanced over his shoulder at Wally, who was still watching the exchange. Performance anxiety? It took him a moment to understand. Hunter had threatened Roy, but Roy knew Hunter would have a harder time if he couldn’t use his powers. And he couldn’t. Not with Wally watching.   
  
Hunter looked angry enough to take his chances in a fistfight anyway but, after several intense moments, he turned on his heel and stalked off down the hall.   
  
For a brief moment, Roy looked just as relieved as Wally felt. The newcomer then turned around again to look at him. “Sorry you had to deal with that,” he said. “Hunter giving you problems?”  
  
“Yeah… well, no. I don’t know. Maybe I overreacted. Technically, he didn’t do anything wrong, but…”  
  
“But he didn’t do anything right either,” he said, nodding knowingly. “Yeah, when he makes a mistake, he just kind of keeps making them.”  
  
“Well, now I know,” Wally sighed. “Are you his friend?”  
  
“Something like that. The name’s Roy. You must be Wally,” he said, and Wally shook the offered hand. “I knew Hunter pretty well. Sorry you had to deal with that. Back in the day, he didn’t usually have these kinds of bitchfits.”  
  
“Well, they’re new to me too. I never knew he had them,” he muttered.   
  
Roy smirked. “I could tell you more if you want,” he said. “Over something to eat?”  
  
“Oddly enough, I’m not really that hungry,” Wally said truthfully. “Haven’t had much of an appetite lately.”  
  
“Coffee then?” Roy asked. He paused for a moment, realizing he was coming on a bit strong and backed off a little. “Not hitting on you, I swear,” he said, holding his hands up. “I just need something to keep me awake right now. I’ve been dead on my feet these past few days.”  
  
Wally paused, looking Roy up and down. He was fit and his hands were rough, and while for most people, it only meant that he was probably just a blue collar worker, most people didn’t also know  _Hunter_. Roy was some kind of vigilante, his body fit for function and his face… He was the Red Arrow. It was hard to tell at first, but Wally had ‘seen’ the Red Arrow up close and personal. He and Roy were the same.  
  
Wally paused as if he were considering his response, but his answer had already been made. “…I know this Indian place,” he said slowly. “It’ll  _really_  wake you up.”  
  
By the end of the meal, Wally learned another thing about the Red Arrow’s tongue. It had buds of steel.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A really long lunch chat.

Meeting Wally had been something of a surprise. According to what Roy had heard, he had been good friends with Hunter for months now, which meant he had the patience of a saint or he actually enjoyed Hunter's company. The latter option shouldn't have boggled Roy as much as it did. He knew Hunter could be good company when he wanted to be, and it was mostly just Roy that he didn’t want to be good company to.

Still, it took a certain thickness of skin to deal with Hunter sometimes. The guy had a frequent case of foot-in-mouth syndrome, and while his powers were the generally accepted source of his more reckless remarks, sometimes Roy was convinced he was just naturally emotionally stupid.

It might have actually explained why Wally was his friend. Birds of a feather, and all.

There was  _something_  between them. Kaldur had known it, of course. He might have never even met Hunter's new significant other, but Kaldur was always right when it came to the personal affairs of his teammates. Roy wasn't entirely sure if this was some sort of sixth Atlantean sense or if Kaldur just had the natural instincts of a gossip.

In any case, Hunter and Wally had had something a little more profound than a friendship. And if Wally's constantly shifting expressions had been anything to go by, he knew it too now. He felt a little sorry for Wally. Being anything with Hunter sometimes took a level of masochism that most people weren't equipped with.

“...boiled eggs and salads and bananas,” Roy said, ranting about another pet peeve about Hunter. “We tried ordering fried chicken once. You know what he did? He peeled the  _fried_  part off. Totally ruins the point of getting it in the first place. The guy is a health freak. I mean, have you checked out his fridge?”

Wally laughed at that.  _Laughed_. “He's not  _that_  bad,” he insisted. “I like his food.”

Roy found that hard to believe. Not after he just watched Wally use two servings of cream and easily over ten packets of artificial sugar before finally deeming his coffee 'adequate' with a slightly dissatisfied look on his face.

“Besides, if I nag enough, I can usually convince him to get takeout,” Wally continued before pausing as his phone began to vibrate against the table. He fiddled with it for a few moments before setting it down. The mood, despite Roy’s careful cultivation, quickly soured.

“Should I ask what's got you looking miserable or buy you some ice cream?” Roy asked. They had left the Indian restaurant a while ago, Roy taking pity on Wally after the kid had tried to match Roy for food. While Roy had been conditioned to endure spicy food, Wally hadn't had the same kind of 'training' with Ollie and his infamous chili. They went for coffee across the street; as it turned out, Wally didn't drink much coffee, but Roy was pretty sure some distance from the Indian restaurant would do him some good, and the entire outing was probably a nice distraction from Hunter anyway. Or it would've been if someone didn't keep texting and calling Wally. Roy had a pretty good idea of who it was.

“It's Hunter,” Wally said unnecessarily as he left his cell phone ringing on the table.

“I figured,” Roy snorted, and before Wally knew what he's doing, Roy snatched the cell off the table and picked up.

“Wally...?” 

Roy was actually mildly surprised that Hunter wasn't spitting nails over the phone. It was the third time he had called Wally in the past hour, and he wasn't exactly known for his great and enduring patience.

“Guess again,” he said coolly, and, as predicted, Hunter's demeanor had completely changed over the phone.

“ _Roy_ ,” Hunter said, practically growling the name, and instead of making any scathing, sharp comment, he promptly hung up.

“There you go,” Roy said, sliding the phone back across the table to Wally. “That'll get you the rest of the night to yourself at the very  _least_.”

Roy was feeling a bit proud of himself, actually, only to realize Wally's glum expression hadn't changed. He wondered if maybe Wally had been hoping to get back to Hunter later.

“Or just an hour,” he adjusted, shortening the predicted time. “He might try again if he thinks I'm gone.”

“You two don't really like each other,” Wally said thoughtfully.

“It's complicated,” he said simply, biting back a sarcastic response. It wasn't as if Wally had done anything to piss Roy off yet, and after being friends with Hunter, the guy deserved some credit and maybe a small dose of pity. “We used to be friends, you know.”

It was... weird to say out loud, to say the least.

And it was a sign of just how much their friendship had decayed over the past year. Wally's eyebrows had shot up his forehead. Yeah. It was probably hard to imagine, from what little of their interactions Wally had seen. 

“What happened?” Wally asked.

Roy forced a thoughtful smirk on his face, not keen on sharing the drug incident with someone he'd just met, friend of ex-friend or not. “Well,” he said finally, after taking a moment to figure out how to brush over the details. “There were three of us. Me, I tended to go off on my own. Always ended up starting shit or getting in over my head. But Hunter? He'd just make it worse.” He laughed at the memory. A real laugh. “I mean, Hunter, he’d try to help. Always meant well, but damn if he wouldn’t just add fire to the fuel... It was our third friend who always, ah... ended up putting those fires out, so to speak.”

Roy grinned at his own inner joke, prompting a small smile from Wally too. He might not've understood the joke in all its entirety, but he needed more smiles. “I, ah... I guess I fucked up first,” Roy said finally. “With Hunter. And then, like all things do with Hunter, we made it worse. And now we're here.”

“I see,” Wally said a little quietly. “I guess I'm the new you.”

“A skinny, watered-down version of me? Then  _maybe_ ,” he replied. “But you haven’t done anything.”

“But I did. There was a fight with Rogues. I should have tried to stop Hunter from going in,” Wally said, but Roy cut him off.

“I'm pretty sure the general consensus was that  _he_  should have stopped  _you_. Hunter's been around the block a lot longer than you, he knows how the drill goes. He should have been protecting you.”

“He didn't need to,” Wally muttered stubbornly under his breath, and Roy could kind of sympathize with the sentiment. He hated looking weak. “...And how much do you know about me anyway?”

Roy paused, suddenly wondering if Wally was bothered by the amount of gossip that went behind his back among Hunter's team.

“I know Barry,” he said, neatly sidestepping the question. “I was actually on my way to Hunter's after speaking to him, actually.”

Wally's expression soured a little. “I can't believe Uncle Barry's telling me who I can and can't be friends with,” he frowned.

“I've got no advice when it comes to that,” Roy said honestly. He couldn't exactly tell Wally to just strike out on his own, not when he didn't know anything about Wally. “But everyone's just trying to do the right thing here. Even Hunter, in his own dumbass way.”

“Half-assed, maybe,” Wally said sulkily.

“Okay, I have to give Hunter a  _little_  credit here,” Roy said. “He really does think he's trying. He's  _doing_  it wrong, but not on purpose.”

“It bothers me a little. I mean, why didn't anyone bother talking to me about this?” he grumbled. “They could’ve  _talked_  to me about it, and instead they just make the decisions for me because I need  _protecting_  from  _everything_. I've taken care of myself for a really long time, you know. Plus, I'm safer with Hunter anyway.” Wally looked a little surprised by what he said and drew back a little from his small rant. “I mean, he probably wouldn't be much against a bunch of supervillains and stuff, but that's what the Flash is for, and really that's just how I feel anyway. Um. Maybe a safety in numbers thing.”

“ _Yeah_ , I get it,” Roy said, biting back a smirk.

Wally looked a little uncertain, possibly picking up on Roy's slightly teasing tone, though he was mostly sure he had done well to mask it. He shook his head. “I just can't be mad at him though,” he said, looking more bothered by the fact than by Hunter's ham-handed way of trying to deal with people.

“Sure you can,” Roy said. “It’s not hard. You can follow my lead.”

“I can't just... look, whatever you've got against him is your business. My issues are different,” Wally told him.

“Not completely different. When I needed help, he didn’t come for me either, and after that, he cut off all ties with me, too.” Wally needed to learn to stand up for himself, and sometimes that took a bit of pushing around, but the look on Wally's face when he said that made Roy wish it didn't have to be him. Worse, he couldn't exactly say Barry told Hunter to stay put, because the kid wasn't exactly in on the whole superhero side job. Roy paused before continuing. “I... guess you didn't know that part.”

“He didn't even try to find me?” Wally asked, slowly taking it in. He seemed to have a bit of trouble taking in what Roy had just told him and looked like he’d just been kicked in the teeth. It was understandable.

“It was more complicated than that,” Roy said, suddenly feeling a little guilty for the whole thing. Despite the fact that it was still  _true_. And that he didn't even like Hunter either.

“But he still didn't look,” he said.

“..No. He didn't.”

Wally didn't look particularly upset by the revelation. Bothered, definitely, but it seemed he was having more trouble digesting the information. Roy watched as he absentmindedly poured several more packets of sugar into his coffee as he thought. “Did Barry tell him not to look?” he finally asked.

Roy paused, unsure of how Wally had come to that conclusion. It was the right one, but he didn't expect Wally to have figured it out. “Like I said, it was complicated.”

“It probably wasn't a good idea for him to go out on that leg,” Wally said. “And Hunter respects Barry. A lot. He wouldn't want to argue with him. Or try to. Not worth the  _effort_.”

Roy recognized the bitter emphasis in his tone and winced. “I want to say not even Hunter would say something that...  _stupid_ ,” he sighed. “But... it's Hunter.” Stupid, dumbass Hunter.

“Yeah. It's... Hunter. I don't think I can hold this against him though.”

“Dude, hold everything against him. You could've been killed, and he didn't even do anything.”

“Not  _killed_ , the Rogues wouldn't have... I mean, they're thugs, but they're not murderous psychopaths. Well, okay, they are, but I got out of the thing with just a few bumps and scrapes...”

“But he didn't even go and look for you,” Roy said.

“I'm not going to lie, this whole thing, it really bites. But I can't throw any stones because I've done the exact same thing. Not to the same degree, but I gave up on...” Wally paused. “People back home, they talk a lot, and they aren't... well, it was  _high school_  in a tiny town in the Midwest. People there... I had something _good_ , back there. And if I held onto it, everything would've been  _fine_. But I caved in. Just a little bit of pressure, and I gave up.”

Roy sighed.

“I have no idea what you were just trying to tell me,” he said bluntly. “Look, I'm fine if you don't feel like talking about it. I get it. You don't want to vent about all your personal issues to someone you don't even know. But I do know Hunter, I've known him longer and maybe better than you. If you want to slam Hunter, I am totally willing to sit here and listen,” he said, and Wally shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “You don't have to talk about  _anything_. But you're still free to say anything. It doesn't really matter what. I've got the night off and after this, I doubt you'll ever see me again.”

“What do you mean by that?” Wally asked him.

“I came here for a job,” Roy said vaguely. “But it looks like it was a bust.”

He hadn't been able to find any leads to Velocity 9 since O'Hannegan’s disappearance, and when Hunter's injury forced him to take a break from Zoom, there had been a sudden influx in crime, making it hard to sort out what was  _relevant_. Roy and Kaldur were helping Flash sort out Central until Hunter recovered, but every night they went to bed a little dismayed by their lack of progress.

Wally bit the side of his lip, looking a little anxious at whatever was going on in his head. “Maybe,” he said, “you'll hit a stroke of luck.”

“Doubtful,” Roy muttered.

“Well, I hope you'll get to stick around,” Wally said. “There are a lot of things to do in Central. It wouldn't be odd if a new job came up.”

Technically true, considering the recent rash of crime sprees. There wasn't a shortage of work, even if it wasn't what Roy wanted.

“I guess,” Roy said, feeling unconvinced but a little heartened nevertheless. The two of them sat quietly, lost in their own thoughts before Wally spoke up again.

“I, ah... back before I moved to Central, I was in a relationship,” he finally said, catching Roy's attention. “It was a secret. And it didn't pan out. I was too busy being concerned about how other people would react. What they would say. That's why I think it wouldn't be fair of me to judge Hunter. He's doing the exact same thing I did to... He's doing the exact same thing I did.”

Something about the way Wally had superimposed his past into his present had struck a chord in Roy. Wally was viewing his past from a different perspective. A sign of growth as a person, Hunter would probably say. It was a little surprising, considering the bits he had heard about Wally's social skills in the past. He was developing a sense of empathy. More importantly, judging from the hurt he had seen in Wally's expression when they first ran into each other, Wally had seen something in his relationship with Hunter, something similar to his relationship with whoever he had been with back in Blue Valley.

And it bothered Roy.

“Were you and Hunter—?” he started to ask. Together? It was always an awkward subject to bring up. It was always hard to tell how a person would react. Which would explain Wally's skittishness around the subject.

“ _No_ ,” Wally said firmly. Firmly and too quickly, as if the thought had already been on his mind. “No,” he added a little less harshly. “But now that I think about it, we should've been. Could've. If he  _was_ , you know. If he was like that.”

Wally watched him with a look in his eye that was so intent it almost made Roy uncomfortable. He was used to being stared down at by enemies; getting a look as calculating yet subtle as this one from someone who was, as far as Roy knew, practically harmless had thrown him off. But it took Roy only a single beat of silence to understand, his hesitance to touch the subject and how he found it hard to even say the word. The way Wally watched him for any response, for condemnation, left Roy wondering how much trouble being in a gay relationship had caused the kid.

“He is. A little,” Roy said. He didn't know how he felt, divulging this kind of information about Hunter. It was Hunter's own business, especially when there wasn't much proof. But he felt that Wally, at least, deserved to know. 

Wally stared at him with a little bit of surprise, either at the fact that Roy didn't seem at all bothered by the subject or because he was starting to wonder how Roy  _knew_  and if it had anything to do with their apparent feud.

“Well, he  _might_  be, I should say,” Roy backtracked a little. He had to admit, considering the fact that Hunter's only relationship had been with a girl, there wasn't much evidence to back up his instinct. “We were just friends, if that's what you're thinking. Me, him, and a guy named K... Kal. A while ago, I was still a little hotheaded and got myself into a bad situation. Kal found out and he actually uprooted himself and came to Star City to keep an eye on me. That's when things started going downhill really fast. I'm not sure what pisses Hunter off more. That Kal decided to stay, or that now we’re together.”

Things had gotten complicated after that incident. To be fair, Roy had left out a few key elements to the story. That Kaldur wasn't just a friend but a leader in their covert team of superheroes, for instance. The fact that Kaldur had left while Hunter's life was falling apart was an even more plausible reason for Hunter's reaction.

At the same time, Roy was a little limited on the stories he could tell Wally, little incidents during Hunter and Kaldur's time on the team together. Hunter’s adamant refusal to accept the possibility of a mole on the team, and his loyalty to its members. The way he stood behind Kaldur when most of the others had been offended by Kaldur’s secrecy when he was investigating the possibility of said mole. The way he could freeze time as easily as breathing and handled pressure almost disturbingly easily, yet froze up the time when he thought Kaldur had died during a training exercise gone wrong.

Roy didn't even bother trying to translate that into 'civilian talk', but Wally didn't seem to need any more proof other than what Roy told him.

“And Kal just... left everything behind?” Wally asked, his interest piqued. He looked a little bothered by the fact. Almost embarrassed.

Not everything, Roy wanted to say. He still had the sea. It wasn't the same as his home in Atlantis, but Kaldur still enjoyed exploring the shore.

“He, ah... he misses his old home from time to time,” Roy admitted. “But it's not as if he never visits when he has the opportunity. You moved here recently, right? Ever think about going back? Seeing the people you left behind again?”

Wally snorted. “Pfft. Only if I’m rubbing something in their  _faces_.”

“I'm... guessing you don't like the town you grew up in.”

“Blue Valley,” Wally provided. “Boring ass shit town.”

“Harsh.”

Wally paused at the comment, looking uncomfortable with the spewed hate, but unable or unwilling to take back his words. “Well... it had it's perks,” he finally said, though he looked as if he would've rather eaten thumbtacks rather than throw the town a compliment.

“Of course it did,” Roy smirked. “I mean, you found a boyfriend. It couldn't have been all that bad.”

Wally's brow twitched a bit, just subtly and Roy almost missed it. It took him a minute to realize the agitation came from more than just the mention of his previous home, the way Wally's eyes darted towards the tables closest to them, as if making sure no one had overheard what they were talking about.

“You embarrassed?” Roy asked him as it occurred to him that Wally tried to avoid talking about his personal preferences.

Wally knew what Roy was talking about, avoiding most eye contact. “It's a personal subject. I like my secrets to stay secrets.”

“ _Secret_ ,” he echoed after Wally. “You're serious. I don't know what your old place was like, but this isn't Blue Valley. As far as I've heard, Central's pretty good on the whole tolerance thing.”

“Well I don't want to be  _tolerated_ , I want to be inconspicuous. The less people know about you, the easier it is to be normal,” Wally insisted.

“No, it isn't.”

The words flew out of Roy's mouth before he even had a chance to think up an argument to support it. He couldn't help it. He knew Wally was wrong on a fundamental level. Wally sat across from him, arms folded and waiting for Roy to tell him why. He didn't look smug, at least, but there was an irritated, challenging feel from the rigidness of his posture. Like he wanted Roy to convince him otherwise.  _Prove it_.

“I know being a minority of any kind can be alienating. Especially if you lived in the kind of place you say you lived. If you let people realize you're different, they won't accept you. And if you hide the kind of person you are, people might not notice, but the effort it takes to pretend will mean it's constantly on your mind.  _You'll_  know you don't fit in. You  _won't_  fit in, not the way you want to. You were in a lose-lose situation, so I get why you probably decided in the end that it's easier just to keep the personal parts of you away from most people. But keeping yourself guarded from everyone? If that's the way you've chosen to be, then I'm willing to bet you haven't felt normal in years.”

“You can't just generalize what I said. The only thing I'm keeping a secret is,” Wally faltered a little, almost too briefly to have been picked up, “my... interests.”

“Your  _gayness_ , you mean,” Roy said bluntly, not bothering to lower his voice, and Wally turned red and ducked his head slightly when a few people around them glanced over momentarily. “Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay.”

“Quit it,” Wally said curtly.

“Fine,  _homosexual_ ,” Roy amended sarcastically. “But I don't see why you're so bothered by the word, because you're  _obviously_  not that.” 

“Because. I'm. Not.” 

Wally didn't look upset or angry. His brow was smooth, but Roy could spot the slightest bit of tension in his temple that subtly drew those brows back into a deliberately calm expression. He recognized it as something Hunter often did when exasperated or backed into a corner. Roy couldn't help but marvel at how cagey Wally was and how quickly he had gone from vulnerable and uneasy to completely unafraid of shutting this entire conversation down and, Roy suspected, simply leaving.

Wally wasn't a criminal to be interrogated and squeezed for information. Instead, he poked and teased reactions out of him, but Wally had, perhaps even subconsciously, sensed him prodding for information and closed everything off. For a moment, Roy felt like everything had suddenly reversed and that it was Hunter he ought to be worrying about. He couldn't help but wonder what Hunter had almost gotten himself into because as reserved as Wally was, Roy had just watched him go from off-balanced to stone cold. He felt like the next words out of Wally's mouth should've been a request for a lawyer.

Instead, Wally crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned back slightly like he was expecting an apology. “And I'm not going to deal with anyone being a dick about it,” he said.

It was downright absurd, the way Wally had gone from defensive to offensive, first shying away from Roy's inquisition and then pushing back so now Roy felt like _he_ was the one being cornered. From the way Wally carried himself, he hadn't really expected him to have that kind of aggression, but then, suddenly, he realized that of  _course_  Hunter got caught up in this enigma. Friendly enough and sometimes a little sensitive until suddenly he's dominating the conversation and dictating the rules. Hunter had a fucking  _type_.

His and Wally's switch from offense to defense and vice versa felt almost absurd, then, suddenly, he realized that of  _course_  Hunter got caught up in this enigma. Friendly enough and sometimes a little sensitive until suddenly he's dominating the conversation and dictating the rules. Hunter had a fucking _type_.

So instead of an apology, Wally got a laugh. 

“I'll stop,” Roy conceded, because he didn't really  _do_ apologies, “but I don't see how you can be into guys and  _not_ —oh, you swing  _both_ ways.” 

Wally shrugged, which was probably the closest he was going to get to an answer. “Anyone ever tell you you're an ass?” he sighed.

“Anyone ever tell _you_?” Roy shot back with a smirk to let him know it was all in jest. “Look, I might be a stranger to you, but I get the feeling getting any real information from you is like wringing water from stone. It's probably  one of the reasons you caught Hunter's interest in the first place. He can't figure you out. But it's also the reason he's not going to go to bat for you, and definitely not against Barry. I mean, how much does he know about you?”

“He knows...  _more_  than enough,” Wally sputtered.

“Hah. For Hunter? He's used to knowing a person inside and out. When I asked him what you were like, you know what he said? Great. He said you were great,” he said, not missing the embarrassed gratification that flickered across Wally's face. “But that was all he could say. Great. Smart. A little reckless. I bet he doesn't know anything about you that he hadn't had to draw out and interpret himself. You two might have chemistry, but Hunter's not going to disturb a years-old friendship with a man to whom he owes everything for the guy's nephew, who doesn't trust him enough to tell him anything about himself. It's too whimsical for him. All these dates you go on, these cutesy little things where you order takeout and pie and stay in to watch movies? Fluff. Pure fluff, and nothing substantial.”

“Those-those weren't  _dates_ ,” he protested, but Roy shook his head.

“They were. They totally were,” he said. “There was more to your friendship than... well, movies and dinner. You  _know_  it too, or else you wouldn't have been this upset that he just cut you out of his life. Normal people just move on after a while when a friend isn't interested anymore. Things were personal between you guys. But apparently, it was just short of personal enough that Hunter's not going to try and hold onto you. Stuck right between friendship and romance, seriously.”

“I... what should I do?”

Roy shrugged. “I don't know. I'm not even his friend,” he said. The words didn't feel right, because even if they weren't friends, Roy knew Hunter better than most people. Except Kaldur. He let out a low, slightly hollow chuckle. “Kaldur would probably know.”

“Kaldur?” Wally repeated.

“Yeah. He was always great with people. It's why I'm pretty sure Hunter liked him. His better half, I guess.”

“Oh. Kal,” Wally said, connecting Kaldur to the earlier name.

Roy realized he forgot to stick to that name and inwardly winced. Kaldur was an uncommon name. He hoped Wally—

“That's an interesting name. Kaldur,” Wally said, repeating the name again, and Roy resisted the urge to smack himself in the forehead.

“He's foreign,” Roy supplied. No shit. Kaldur was, like, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea foreign.

Roy was pleasantly surprised when Wally had, luckily, managed to wander completely around the usual 'Oh? From where?' question. “What's Kaldur like?”

“Kal is... a lifesaver. When I was in trouble, he dropped everything to be there for me. And believe me, he had a lot going for him. People like Kal. Always polite, always respectful. But above all, he's  _calm_. Always level-headed. Even in the middle of a firefight, he won't lose his cool.”

“A firefight?”

“Ex-military. So you know he's, ah...” Roy gestured vaguely with his hands as he paused to come up with a proper way to phrase it. “Heavy-set,” he finished with a grin. “Very... fit. Yeah, fit. Not like you, but ah...  _solid_ , that's the word. Very,  _very_  solid.”

“Enjoying yourself?” Wally asked, looking less than enthusiastic by the rambling.

“Oh. Well.” Right. Roy hadn’t thought this thread of conversation through and struggled to find a topic that involved less marveling at how great his own life had somehow turned out. “But, you know, Hunter doesn't exactly have a  _type_. I mean, between Ashley, Kal, and you, that's like... Hunter's all over the place, all over the spectrum. He's got no taste.”

“I get it.”

“Uh, I meant no particular taste. He's a very bland guy. He'd be good with anything.”

“Thanks.”

“Not that he has low standards, or anything. You're not bad yourself—hold up. I just saw you drop forty packets of sugar in that cup of coffee like it's nothing.”

“...It was just... not even two digits,” Wally shrugged. “Okay maybe two digits, but definitely no more than fifteen.” 

“How the heck do you keep all that off?” Roy asked. “That's just not human.”

Wally shrugged, clearly uncomfortable, and Roy suddenly hoped that this guy wasn't one of those human supremacist nuts because, stupid relationship issues aside, he seemed pretty cool so far.

“I  _walk_  everywhere,” Wally said defensively. “Look, I don't see how this matters anyhow. Even if I wanted to open up to him or whatever you were suggesting, it's too late. He's not talking to me anymore.”

“I'm pretty sure that was him sending you about twenty text and voice messages after I picked you up,” Roy smirked.

“That doesn't count. That's just him freaking out because, well,  _you_  picked me up,” Wally said.

“ _So_  here comes your second chance,” Roy said. “Or twenty-first. Whenever he calls next.”

“Are you trying to get us  _together_?” he asked, looking honestly confused as to why Roy was helping him. Roy had to admit, it wasn't just sympathy for Hunter’s new redheaded ex-best friend.

“I'm trying to piss him off,” Roy grinned, getting up from the table and laying down some money. “You can either follow my advice and go after him, in which case the best thing that ever happened to him will be all  _my_  fault, or you can  _not_ follow my advice and he'll be stuck moping by himself until he comes across another hot redhead. Which could be a pretty long while.”

Roy disregarded the redheads in the superhero community. Vigilantes didn’t count. There were an oddly high number of them, compared to the ratio of redheads in normal civilian populations.

“...You're pretty full of yourself,” Wally said, a real grin finally spreading across his face and, yeah, Hunter was an idiot. “How long are you sticking around Central?”

Roy shrugged. “A few days. Maybe a week, tops. Another thing about Kal, he's totally a hopeless optimist. I would know.”

“Maybe you ought to hold out a bit longer,” Wally said. “Never know when something might turn up.”

“Already trying to hit me up for another date? Seriously, I'm out fifty bucks tonight because of you.”

“Yeah, but I’m totally worth it.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't like the part where it feels like Roy is outing Wally, but at least it's private and not something Wally has deliberately hidden. Just awkward and annoyed by the fact by Pavlovian conditioning. Anyway, it's my birthday (sorta; a day late), thought I'd do something nice and give you guys an update.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short update, shit's finally about to get moving. Sorry about the long waits, everyone!

Roy wasn't sure if Wally was really worth the fifty dollars’ worth of dinner, seeing as he didn't expect to run into him again much in the future. Still, a few minutes after the two of them had parted ways, Roy was starting to get the distinct feeling that he was being followed, and judging from the flickering blur he had spotted in the corner of his eyes, he had actually gotten a pretty great deal if Wally was his good luck charm.

A sharp turn down an alley, and he briskly started heading towards the dead end, closer to the wall, keeping one point of entry where the Kid would most likely come from.

He waited for a few moments. Deep, even breaths, level heartbeat, and steady hands. He never fought Hunter before. Not a real fight. Not a physical one. And, honestly, Roy wasn't sure how he'd fare against someone as quick as Hunter was. He wondered if he'd do any better against the Kid, who seemed to fight like a wild card, always hit or miss.

 _Movement_.

Roy drew his weapon. He hadn't had the foresight to bring his usual bows with him when he was between visits with the Flash and Zoom, but, like Artemis had adopted his polyurethane arrows, he had borrowed her idea of a collapsible crossbow, easy to transport and keep on him.

Roy released the first bolt before he even got a clear view of the Kid, but he knew the arrow had flown true to his aim by experience alone. It would've knocked him out or at least slowed him down, depending on how long it took a speedster to burn through the sedatives, but the Kid had caught it before it could hit him in the shoulder.

Roy, at least, got the satisfaction of a low swear as the Kid was nearly caught off guard.

“Hey!” the Kid shouted, his hands raised at the level of his head in a sign of surrender. “Relax, I'm not here to fight.”

“Don't come any closer,” Roy warned, though by the time he finished the sentence, the Kid was already two-thirds of the way down the alley and a standing a few feet away from Roy. To the thief's credit though, he stopped obediently, watching Roy with an air of careful, cautious patience as he restrained himself. The Kid looked different. His face was obscured by more than just the hat and mask combination, with the domino masked replaced by a surprisingly typical-looking burglar mask. He would have assumed that a thief of the Kid's caliber and ego would have chosen something a little more custom-made, something with a little more flair.

Contrary to what most people thought, there  _were_  a handful of beings with superspeed on Earth. They just weren’t fast enough to compare. Not enough to take on the kinds of problems the League did. None of them were even close to Flash's level of speed. Zoom was one of few people in the world who could match the Flash on foot, and he wasn't even a speedster. And this kid,  _the_  Kid, was one of the closest people to have ever come to matching the Flash's abilities, and he was a criminal. Pity.

But there was one definite advantage Roy had over the Kid. Experience. Training. It would take a little over three seconds for the Kid to accelerate to a speed fast enough to take him down. Roy had taken people out in less.

“Okay, this is getting a little ridiculous,” the Kid said impatiently, taking a few steps forward. “I—”

“I _said_ —” Roy swept the Kid's front leg out from under him, knocking him flat on the ground and using the opportunity to pin him down with an arm pressing down over the Kid’s neck. “—do _not_ come any closer.”

He wasn't in any mood to play around, not without his mask or at least a pair of decent sunglasses to protect his identity from anyone who might pass by. Worse yet, this was proof that the Kid did, in fact, know just about everybody’s secret identity. According to Batman, the Kid apparently knew a number of names—the Flash, Zoom, Batman, Robin, and maybe more. Roy was pretty sure he could consider himself among them now. He wondered if it was possible there was a leak on the team but quickly banished the thought. No need to go through that mess again.

“Ugh, what the hell is your problem...?” the Kid groaned, but Roy didn't let down his guard. While the Kid seemed a little winded from the fall, he glared up at Roy with a frown set on his face, lucid and, for the most part, unfazed by Roy's aggression.

“I still haven't paid you back from the last time we met,” Roy answered, refusing to let up on the Kid’s neck. The thief didn't fight back. Roy guessed it was probably because he was still determined not to antagonize Roy any more than he already had.

“You talking 'bout the kiss? Oh, man, I know I'm good, but that one was on the house. Really,” the Kid said after a beat, taking a moment to recover his wits. He looked at Roy's face, his eyes trailing down his body, down to the knee that had ended up resting awkwardly between the Kid's own legs. “...I do like where your head is at though. Carry on.”

Roy rolled his eyes, giving the Kid a half-hearted punch to the stomach and used it to push himself off of the thief, who let out a quiet oof. With a grin, the Kid latched onto Roy's hand and used it to pull himself up along with him as Roy stood and straightened up.

Roy yanked his hand out of the Kid’s and glared at him.

“Thank you,” the thief said cheekily, unfazed by Roy’s irritation.

“What do you want?” Roy kept the tip of his crossbow pressed against the Kid's stomach.

“Stow it,” the Kid said. “Like I said, I'm not picking a fight. Just want to talk.”

“Well, this isn't stopping you,” he said, refusing to move the crossbow.

“Yeah, well, I'm not getting a real friendly vibe here,” the thief pouted. “Which is a real damper on the mood, seeing as that's exactly what we're going to be.  _Friends_.”

Roy resisted the temptation to snark about how the Kid must have hit his head too hard on the ground, but aside from the fact that it was too cliché for his tastes, he also knew the Kid would've only come if he had something up his sleeve. The Kid had something he thought Roy needed. And Roy had something he wanted.

“And why would I want to be your friend?” Roy scoffed.

“Why  _wouldn’t_  you?” the Kid asked, motioning down at himself. “I mean, let’s not forget, when we first met, you were  _all_  over me. Kept following me wherever I went.” The Kid wisely chose to back up and retreat a little. If he was any closer, Roy would’ve gone back to punching in his general direction. “You know, I had you pegged you as a vigilante from the very start, but I didn't recognize you as the Red Arrow. Should’ve, but I guess I haven’t been entirely up to date.”

“Get to the point,” Roy said sternly. 

The Kid looked at the tip of the arrowhead and pouted. “Fine, fine. So you're giving up on V9, aren't you? Let me guess, the only reason you're hanging around is because Zoom broke his leg.”

“Because  _you_  broke his leg,” Roy corrected.

The Kid shrugged. “His leg broke,” he said finally. “And now crooks are crawling out of the woodwork. I can't even walk into a convenience store nowadays without finding someone already there,” he said, a little irritably, making Roy suddenly wonder about a few times when he had interrupted a robbery only to find the robbers already subdued. A few nights, he had noticed that neither Kaldur nor the Flash had been responsible for some. “Everyone in Central is tripping each other up. Overpopulation.”

“If you're complaining about that, you only have yourself to blame.  _You_  took out Zoom. And if you're here to complain because there are other scumbags getting in the way of you  _stealing_  things, then you better run now. I'm not lending any sympathetic ear to your angst.”

“You... That's just...” the Kid chuckled and shook his head. “Whatever. The problem with your assumption is that you think crime went up because Zoom went down.”

“Why else did things change after he went on leave?”

“Red, you are  _proof_  that things were changing long before Zoom's absence. You just didn't realize the migration started back then because you were a part of it. You followed a lead from Star City and ended up in Central.”

“The spike in crime... it's related to Velocity 9?” Roy paused. It felt too easy, too good to be true. The fact that he had been on the verge of officially labeling the mission a dead end and calling it quits, when, out of the blue, the elusive Kid shows up out of nowhere, offering help and telling him his current job was somehow related to his past investigation? Unrealistically convenient. “How do I know you're telling the truth?”

“Do I have any reason to lie?”

“You don't have any reason to tell me the truth.”

The Kid paused. “The recent arrests in this city, check their records. Their background probably doesn't check out. I'm willing to bet a decent portion of them are from out of state,” the Kid said. “It's not conclusive, but a pretty good indicator that  _something_  is up.”

“How'd you get this information?” Roy asked, making a note of how the Kid had navigated around his implication.

“The Rogues told me about this group called the Network,” the Kid said. And that was when Roy felt his heart stop.

Roy knew about the Network. He knew the basics, at least. It was a subject that Robin's team just didn't bring up, not with Hunter around. The Kid looked ready to elaborate, to tell Roy what else he knew about the organization, but he faltered, catching the shocked expression on Roy's face. Again, Roy felt naked without a mask resting on the bridge of his nose, but there was little he could do about it. The Kid already seemed to know who he was anyway.

And one look at the shock on Roy's exposed face made the Kid throw his arms up in frustration. “...Aaand you already know who they are,” he declared out loud, sounding cross at the revelation. “Un _believable_. Am I the only one who  _didn’t_  know about the super-secret organization?”

“Over a year ago, Zoom… he made a bad call. He went after a bad guy, thinking it was Cold. Almost got a faceful of ice for his troubles, but he was knocked out of the way and saved by—” His girlfriend’s father. “—an FBI agent who was working the case. That man saved Zoom’s life. Took the shot that was meant for him.”

“...He didn’t make it,” the Kid said quietly, sounding a little apprehensive about the information. Roy couldn’t imagine why. Invading people’s privacy was his thing, after all. 

That being said, Roy wasn’t uncomfortable giving out this information to the thief either. Derek Fox’s death had left an indelible impression on Hunter. He changed. 

“After that, Zoom made it his goal to discover why it all happened. He wanted to know who this guy with a copy of Cold’s gun was. How he got his hands on it. He had a lot of theories. He’d heard whispers of a group called the Network which sold underground equipment and substances to criminals all over the world, based right here in Central City. But things got ugly. Zoom’s methods started becoming…  _questionable_. Or I thought so, anyway. I don’t know about anyone else, but no way he could’ve gotten some of that information just by hanging guys off the edges of buildings,” Roy said. And then, realizing what he was implying and to whom, he backtracked. “Those’re just my suspicions, anyway.”

“He… tortured people?”

“Whoa. No. I wouldn’t go that far,” Roy said. “But a lot of these guys, they’re hard to scare, and Zoom and the Flash aren’t exactly as intimidating as, say, Batman, after all. Anyway, as far as we all know, everything seemed above board. But as Zoom continued his investigation, things didn’t get better. He started uncovering more and more of this conspiracy. He kept hearing about moles and spies. The League always suspected that there were various criminals undercover working in our government, but Zoom started talking about the Network making contacts in almost every level of our infrastructure. He was talking conspiracies. Everything was one giant conspiracy.”

“And you didn’t believe him,” the Kid realized. 

“We knew  _some_  of his suspicions were correct, but we also knew he was becoming obsessed. I’d even say unstable. He hadn’t recovered from the agent’s death. Things were falling apart in his personal life,” he explained. Kaldur had left the team to help Roy with his own issues, a major pillar of support gone from Hunter’s life. “And the Network, realizing how intent he was on investigating them, closed ranks and went further underground. And the less he found, the more obsessed he became, and the more obsessed he was about finding them, the more they hid. Eventually, I heard the Flash put his foot down. Gave Hunter some sort of ultimatum. I don’t know what it was specifically, but he forced Zoom’s investigation to an end.”

“Why didn’t anyone follow up on the Network?” the Kid asked, sounding almost angry on Hunter’s behalf. “Didn’t anyone help him?”

“It started off as his first major solo case, but after the FBI agent’s death, the League did try to help and launch separate missions, with their own hands and even with a smaller strike force. There were two or three cases where they thought they were getting close to a meeting or gathering, but each time, they turned out to be traps,” Roy said. 

The Kid didn't say anything for a long moment, anxiously biting the edge of his lip and fidgeting in place. “ _I_  got an invite to a meeting,” he finally breathed out, and Roy understood the sudden concern. The Kid wasn't sure whether or not he was walking into a trap.

“Just out of nowhere?” Roy asked for clarification.

“The lady who seems to be running the place, Amunet Black,” the Kid answered. Roy recognized that name. “She said that V9 was up for sale and gave me the time and place for the next meeting. She figured I'd be interested because, well, I'm kind of in the business of speed.”

Roy paused to think. “It could be a set up, but I don’t think you really have a high enough profile for her to be setting up traps for.”

“Well thanks.”

“I’m just saying. You’re a wild card, but you haven’t done anything murder-worthy to any bad guys, have you?” Roy asked. 

The Kid took a long moment to think over his answer but eventually shook his head.

“I’ve got nothing,” he said.

“Well then we’ve got that, at least,” Roy said. “Odds are, she just honestly thinks you’d have a vested interest in keeping an eye on V9. Either that, or she has some other motive.”

“Oh, well, if that's all it could be,” the Kid snorted. “That's like saying ' _it's either yes or no_ '. Thank you for your input.”

“Well, we eliminated the possibility that she thinks you're some kind of double agent. Double agents have the most dangerous job.”

“Or the safest job,” the Kid pointed out. And he was right, in a way. One benefit of being a double agent was that, if one side fell, he could always retreat to the other side. But this was an entirely different situation. This wasn't a matter of one side being wiped out. It was a different kind of war. If the Network went down, it would go down slowly, and taking the Kid down with it if he got himself wrapped up in it too deeply.

“But in this case, the most dangerous,” Roy repeated firmly.

“Well, it doesn't matter,” the Kid said, crossing his arms in front of him. “If things look like they're going south, I could just run.”

“Wait, you're  _still_  planning on going in?” Roy asked incredulously. “Were you not listening to anything I just said? The League went toe-to-toe with the Network and  _lost_.”

Admittedly, the League hadn't pulled out all their big guns, needing to keep their firepower low and their involvement at a minimum in order to keep the Network from calling foul and slipping through their fingertips. Still, after all the long hours spent investigating, the League had taken what action they could, and it had all amounted to nothing but wasted time and effort.

“But that's the thing,” the Kid said, managing to look unconcerned by the fact, though Roy knew he was probably assessing the situation in his head, recalculating the risks. “I don't fight toe-to-toe with anyone.”

“I’m going to hate myself for saying this, but we have to take this to the League—” Roy started, but he was cut off. 

“If you tell the League anything about this, you won't ever hear from me or the Network again,” the Kid warned, his tone hard and unrelenting. “I'm the only person you know who's got an in with the Network, and I will  _only_ cooperate with you and Aquarius. I'm not working with  _anyone_  associated with the Justice League in  _any_  way. Not a member, not a sidekick, not a... super-secret Justice League black ops team.”

“... _Covert_  ops,” Roy corrected the thief under his breath, seeing no reason to deny the team's existence when the Kid was already aware of it and had even encountered the entire team at least once already.

The Kid quickly brushed his comment off. “Whatever. I already have to worry about whether or not the Network is leading me into an ambush. I don't need to waste time trying to figure out if I've got the League ready to put me in handcuffs the moment this is all over.”

“If you could help, I could convince the League to provide immunity for everything you've done,” Roy said. “Think about your rap sheet. It's got to be pretty long by now, right?”

The Kid lifted a brow, caught somewhere between amused and curious with a hint of caution. “Rap sheet? Maybe you haven't heard, but I've never been caught. I don’t  _have_  a rap sheet.” 

“You can’t run forever,” Roy said. He ignored the Kid’s amused smirk. “All the things you’ve done, they’re going to accumulate. And eventually, when you get caught, it’s all going to come rushing back. If you make a deal now, you can avoid all the trouble.”

“And have my identity on record? No, thank you. I've been good on the whole anonymity thing so far, I'd rather not ruin it for myself,” the Kid said, and Roy had to admit, he had a point. Having his name on record would make it harder to go right back to his previous lifestyle. “Give it up, Red. I'm not working with the League.”

“Why would you come to me anyway? I mean, I get that you don't want to work with someone closely associated with the League, but you should know that I worked with Green Arrow and I know a lot of members and side-members. If you didn't want to risk doing anything that might tip off the League, you could have just avoided us completely.”

“Maybe I just like you,” the Kid said, but Roy gave him a look to let him know he wasn't convinced, and the thief shook his head. “A bad guy can get into big trouble, doing the right thing. I need a vigilante on hand when I go against the Network. From my position, you get the credit, I get the backup. I, uh...” The Kid shifted from one leg to another. “I don't know what I'm doing.” The discomfort actually fit with the profile Kaldur had mentioned. Not being in control, it bothered him.

It occurred to Roy just then that the Kid was, well, practically a baby compared to most other hardened criminals. Despite his successes, pulling off an innumerable number of jobs without getting caught even once, he had only been an official part of the 'criminal society' for a few months now, and he was hardly even an active member. He hardly knew anything about the Network, aside from the fact that they were dangerous, and he was willing to wade through the shark-infested waters anyway. It was a kind of shocking realization, that a criminal would be willing to risk his life to fight against the organization that supported his own teammates.

“...So keeping V9 off the streets is that important to you, huh?” Roy said.

The Kid scowled but looked away. “It's... an insult,” he said vaguely, but Roy could hear an underlying bitterness in his voice.

Velocity 9 was more than just an inadvertent insult to the Kid's hard-earned superspeed. It couldn't just be about the Kid eliminating competition.

“So it's  _personal_  for you,” Roy surmised.

“If that crap gets on the street, it's on me,” the Kid nearly spat angrily.

“No, it's on both of us,” Roy corrected. “I can't speak for Aquarius just yet, but I'm in.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not an April Fools Day prank, I assure you. I can't promise regular updates, but I will do my best not to fall off the face of the world.

It'd been a long day. Between Hunter's dismissal of him, his own revelations surrounding the nature of their relationship, and meeting Roy as both Wally and the Kid, Wally was actually surprised he had enough left in him to focus on everything else he needed to do.

The mask was new. Something Wally had taken from a sporting goods store before rushing back to meet Roy as the Kid. The hero hadn't commented on the change in appearance, and being the straightforward kind of person he seemed to be, Wally assumed it was because Roy felt the change hadn't warranted much attention. Which was a good thing, seeing as Wally didn't want Roy wondering why the Kid had suddenly decided to tweak his appearance.

Now that it seemed they had some sort of long-term relationship in the making and Roy had seen his face, a new look would be useful. The balaclava covered a good amount of his face, but he didn’t like the way it smothered him. It got too warm when he ran and the material distracted him, but it did provide more protection to his identity than the domino mask did, and Wally wondered if it was possible to commission something from Gambi without him mentioning it to the Rogues.

Better not to risk it for now. He'd just stick to home-made and stolen 'equipment', as he always had. And a radio, some sort of walkie talkie to keep in contact with Red Arrow and Aquarius. Something small. Inconspicuous.

Wally was too busy, lost in his thoughts, to pick up on the unhappy look his mother sent him as he arrived back at home.

“You snuck out,” she said, her arms crossed in front of her, breaking Wally's train of thought with a stern smash, and Wally stopped dead in his tracks, suddenly faced with a situation he hadn't premeditated.

“I...” Wally tried to begin, but he couldn't think of anything to say.

“Where on _earth_ would you go, this late at night?” she demanded, and Wally tried to shrug helplessly, but his mom wasn't going to take a brushoff as an answer. “Where've you been?”

“Out,” Wally said shortly, honestly. Always honest. It was hard to come up with anything other than the truth in the face of a situation he hadn't prepared himself for. He hadn't given a thought to excuses for his late night excursions in months. His carelessness bothered him.

“ _Wally_ ,” she said, shifting her hands to her hips as she stared him down with that look she had always given him back when he was causing trouble in Blue Valley, and suddenly, Wally was _furious_ because what had he done wrong? Sneaking out late in the evening? He was eighteen years old, a legal adult in his own right who could be using a part of his ample scholarship money to live in his own dorm at school, but instead he was here, getting in trouble with his mom, the mother who left him in Blue Valley, who messed up the one good thing he had going for him. His friendship with Hunter was one of the last honest things in his life and now it was _gone_ because _now_ she decided to play the doting, protective mother. “I gave you permission to go out for some fresh air, and you lie to me and tell me you’re going to bed, and the next thing I know, I’m checking up on you in your room and _you’re not there_ —”

“Fine,” Wally said, shaking his head. “I went to go see Hunter.” The subtle hint of irritation in her expression only made Wally angrier. “You don't have to worry, though, he's not talking to me any more. Not to mention, isn't it kind of late to be telling me who I can and can't be friends with? I thought that level of interference was reserved for, like, ages twelve and under. Of course, I guess you're just making up for lost time.”

Her expression shifted from angry to shocked to upset and defensive in a matter of seconds. “Wally, that's not fair.”

“No, you know what's not fair? Leaving me in that crapsack town after you promised to take me back to Central when you left Dad. _That_ wasn't right.”

“I didn’t mean to. And you _liked_ Blue Valley,” his mom said. “You had friends there.”

“As it turns out, I didn't,” he said venomously before walking past her and into his room, shutting the door behind him. He pushed his mom's hurt look and the realization that he'd have to apologize later to the back of his mind. He needed a two-way radio. And a new mask, something that would cover his face. Nylon was a good material. And maybe some new shoes.

Wally had preparations to make, and he couldn't waste time thinking about other people when he had more important issues to deal with.

* * *

It hadn't taken long for Kaldur to track the Kid down. He had quickly spotted the thief jogging up and down the river that ran on the edge of Central, just as Roy had said he would be. This was now the third time Kaldur had met face-to-face with the thief, and the first time had ended with the Kid on the ground, spasming from Kaldur's bursts of electricity. With that incident taken into account, the Kid's discomfort around him seemed completely reasonable.

After the third glance Kaldur caught from the Kid, the thief finally snorted, a bit disdainfully. “Aren't you _freezing_?” he grumbled, shifting from foot to foot, his arms crossed in front of him and shoulders hunched slightly to shield himself from the cool winds.

It _was_ a remarkably cool day, compared to the recent calm weather Central had been experiencing as of late. Kaldur hardly noticed it, and the Kid looked at him incredulously as Kaldur stood, skin still wet from the river and unaffected by the cool temperatures.

“Atlanteans are better adjusted to cool waters,” Kaldur said evenly, not responding to the bait in the Kid's voice. There was no point in jeopardizing their tenuous alliance, especially considering how temperamental the Kid tended to be. The Kid stared at him for several moments before turning his head to look straight forward, determinedly avoiding any glances in Kaldur's general direction. He briefly wondered what had the Kid in such a mood. According to Roy, he was much more open at their last meeting. From the way the Kid was acting, whatever Kaldur had done to offend him, it had happened recently.

As they waited for Roy to arrive, Kaldur ignored those thoughts. There was no point in wondering what was going on in the Kid's mind when he already knew so little about the Kid, his life, and his mannerisms. Instead, Kaldur took in the Kid's new look. The domino mask had been abandoned for one that covered more of the Kid's face, either out of need to further hide his facial features or in deference to the recent wintry weather. The mask reminded Kaldur almost of Zoom's outfit, though it felt a little bit more raw. Not as streamlined as Zoom's current costume, not as neatly made. The Kid had only started playing with his appearance, and Kaldur would have been amused at the thought of the Kid meticulously hand-sewing his costume if it hadn't been for his growing worries. The Kid, new to the scene, was already beginning to further customize his uniform, testing it out to see how it affected his performance. He was learning.

But he was still impatient.

The Kid sighed for the sixth time, glancing from side to side. He was probably worried about being seen with Kaldur. It was a legitimate fear for a criminal, to be seen peacefully standing side-by-side with a vigilante, but Kaldur had chosen this spot by the bridge precisely for its isolation. It was impossible to see for anyone standing on top the bridge, and no one ever had a reason to be anywhere but on the bridge in this area. “What's taking Red so long?” he said.

“Red Arrow cannot swim at my speed nor run at yours,” Kaldur said. “In addition, he is bringing equipment that will prove useful in our venture.”

The Kid looked away from Kaldur, to the river, to the bridge, to the distant buildings sitting at the top of the slope, seeming determined to avoid looking in Kaldur’s direction. He seemed as impatient as one would have expected a speedster to be. Yet Kaldur found that odd. One of the Kid's most notable traits was supposed to be his somewhat meticulous nature. He was agitated.

“So,” he finally said, after several tense moments of silence. “Think I'm going to see Zoom on my tail in the near future?”

It was a question that Kaldur hadn't expected. “This is not something you can find out for yourself?” he asked. “You _do_ know more about his civilian identity than most people.”

“I figured asking a friend of his might save me the trouble of finding out for myself,” he shrugged. “But breaking into hospital records would probably take, like, two seconds anywa—”

“He should recover by the end of the year, some time in December.”

“I knew you'd cave,” the Kid said cockily. “So what's he been up to?”

“Is this why you came to us for help?” Kaldur asked, taking control of the conversation.

“What?”

“It was the one part of your plan that I was unable to fathom,” he said. “Why you came to us. Roy told me you were inexperienced in espionage and black market trades, but for someone like you, someone as cautious as you... You'd need a more compelling reason to seek us out. So. Is it Zoom?”

The Kid stared at Kaldur, thrown off by his analysis. “I guess you and Zoom really _were_ close, if you managed to pick that psychoanalytical BS up from him,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I was only wondering because I don't feel like looking over my shoulder whenever I go out, and now that I'm working with you guys, it might be good to remember that your operation relies on _me_. You don't want me caught either.”

Kaldur let his declaration slide. The Kid held a valid point, but there was something about his reaction that made it feel like he was just avoiding Kaldur’s question. The Kid had some sort of connection to Zoom, Kaldur was sure of it.

“I see you two have gotten acquainted.”

Kaldur looked up to see Roy walking down the slope. Automatically, all three of them began retreating towards the shadows under the bridge.

“Took you long enough,” the Kid snorted. “So Aquarius said you were bringing something?” He eyed the briefcase in Roy's hand.

“Time traveling devices,” Roy said, the sarcasm spread thin across his tone. He elaborated when the Kid gave him a strange look. “We're bringing you to the twenty-first century. Your low-tech ways aren't going to work so well if you insist on playing with others. I got you bone-conduction earbuds so we can hear what you hear and maintain communication, and this is a brand you won't find in most markets. We have a bug that'll give us your location just in case we lose you—”

“Wait,” the Kid said, holding up his hands. “Just to make things clear, I'm not wearing these things 24-7.”

“If something happens to you while you're not wearing this—”

“ _Don't care_ ,” he interrupted flippantly. “I got my personal life to think about. If I'm not going to let you guys know who I am, why would I let you know where I live?”

“Fine. But you'll keep the earbuds on hand and report anything that happens.”

“ _O_ kay,” the Kid said in a tone that led Kaldur to believe they'd be meeting more resistance than they would like with the thief, but Roy let the mocking tone pass in favor of moving on.

“And I'd suggest picking something up before going into the Network. A weapon. Some training. Anything, really,” Roy finally said, avoiding eye contact with Kaldur. “You're walking into a lion's den, you better make sure you can fight your way out.”

“Why should I? I don't need a weapon,” the Kid protested.

“You need _something_ ,” Roy told him firmly. “You rely on tricks and luck, but that's not going to cut it here. Not for long. You need something to protect yourself because your hand-to-hand is crap.”

Kaldur couldn't help but feel slightly betrayed at Roy's suggestion. Kaldur might have reluctantly agreed to Roy's logic, but he still had some reservations about working with a criminal. He was even less enthusiastic about convincing said criminal to take up arms. Kaldur's only consolation was that the Kid seemed equally reluctant to do so.

“You've barely ever seen me in action,” the Kid replied. “What makes you think—?”

“Zoom had one leg and he still managed to take you down.”

“Fine. I'll work something out, then,” the Kid said, though he looked less than pleased at the thought of fighting. “Anyway, the invitation I got was for some kind of V9 demonstration. The thing is, since the prototype was already released to the public in small quantities, it shouldn't _need_ another demonstration. I'm assuming this means they've altered the structure of the formula. _Again_.”

“I'm no chemistry buff, but I thought the thing about chemicals is that even the slightest changes to the structure can completely change its effects,” Roy said.

“I never got to run any tests off the V9 sample I bummed off you,” the thief said. “But I bet whatever they did this time, they still kept the functional groups of the formula the same. The, ah, important parts that makes the drug do what it's supposed to, I mean. The basic effects would be the same. They might have been playing with the reactivity. The thing is, I can't be sure until I get a good look at it. I'm hoping I can find out more at the demonstration, maybe even pocket a sample. Of course, I guess making sure the bad guys don't get it takes priority. What are we doing at the demonstration?”

“We will do nothing,” Kaldur answered.

“ _Nothing_?” the Kid repeated. He sounded practically offended by the notion of inaction. “What do you mean _nothing_?”

“Deals like this, they go down in phases. The Network is careful. The mastermind designing the drug probably won't even be there,” Kaldur said. For some reason, this incited a bark of laughter from the Kid. “Most likely, they'll send a few men to demonstrate the effects of the drug and draw attention. Those interested will buy into what's probably going to be an auction that'll take place at a later date, giving buyers time to gather their money and resources.”

“I only got one date and one location,” the Kid frowned.

“And that's the way it's meant to be. You only get the next invite if you buy in,” Roy explained.

“Ugh,” the thief groaned. “Ballpark estimate? How much?”

“If we were to guess, I would suggest bringing fifty grand, US dollars, to be safe. A drug of this potential would draw in many buyers, and there are no precedents for us to follow. It is hard to predict how much a buy-in would cost,” Kaldur told him. “If you cannot afford it—”

“No, no, I've got it,” the Kid sighed, looking pained by the thought. “I’ll start putting some money together. It's the least I can do.” Kaldur wasn't sure where the comment had come from, considering the fact that the Rogue was already placing himself into a precarious position, but before he could question the thief, he shook his head. “I guess I just don't like the idea of my money going to a bunch of criminals.”

“...Are you serious?” Roy asked incredulously.

“Hey, they're _competition_ ,” the Kid snorted. and Kaldur supposed, in a lateral way, the Kid was right, though he was also quite sure this was just another one of the Kid's brief moments of contradictory honesty. “So we're going after the people producing the drug. I get that. Find out who and where they are and destroy all the drugs and research notes.”

“And arrest whoever created the drug as well,” Kaldur added. “The knowledge of this drug is dangerous, both to our side of the law and the person holding the knowledge as well. Capturing the creator is important. He cannot be allowed to walk freely.”

The Kid looked a little uncomfortable at the thought.

“Right,” he slowly nodded. “And the Network? And what about the buyers? They're not exactly on the right side of the law. We going to let _them_ walk free?”

“We'll deal with that when it comes,” Roy answered.

“But for now, we focus on identifying the enemy first, and later we find charges to arrest them on. The important thing now is getting information.”

The Kid nodded. “The first meeting takes place in two weeks,” he said, “so try and keep your calendars clear.”

“You do not have any plans of your own?” Kaldur asked.

“Why would I?”

“It is Thanksgiving. I would have still assumed you would need to make an appearance with your family beforehand. Would they wonder where you are?”

Kaldur recalled one of Hunter's hypotheses. The meticulous care that went into maintaining his own secret identity wasn't just for his own peace of mind but his family's as well. The Kid put a lot of effort into maintaining his cover; probably even from his family. It was speculation, but the logic behind it was sound. The problem was that they couldn’t trust the Kid. He was smart. He knew more about his opponents’ personal lives than he should. He could be deliberately building up a psychological profile that didn’t fit his true nature.

“Why would that even matt—?” the Kid started, looking irritated and bothered by the deliberate intrusiveness of Kaldur's question. “No. I can deal with them. What about you guys? Do _you_ have any distractions I should worry about? Because if I'm going to be risking my life in the middle of a den of criminals, I'd like your full attention.”

Kaldur watched the Kid's expression carefully, second-guessing his own speculations on the Kid. The comparison most likely hadn't been intentional, but the fact that he had essentially considered his family as a distraction didn't make him seem as if he were the kind of criminal who would hide his pastimes from his family to spare them the concern. Then again, the Kid had been uncharacteristically surly the entire meeting. 'Off his game', as Roy would say.

“The closest Atlantean equivalent of your holiday does not take place until spring,” Kaldur told him. “And Red Arrow does not take part in these festivities for personal reasons,” he added for Roy, in case his partner was in the mood to work himself into a small rant.

“It's a completely self-indulgent government-established holiday celebrating the conquest of another culture,” Roy muttered under his breath, though he shut up quickly with a single, slightly amused, mostly tired glance from Kaldur. “But nobody cares about that story anyway.”

“I wouldn't mind lending an ear some time,” the Kid smirked, holding a hand out for Roy to shake, which he reluctantly did.

* * *

Aquarius had brought up a valid point. The meeting took place during Thanksgiving break, something that seemed actually a bit amusing to Wally.

 _'I guess bad guys need a valid reason to get time off work too,'_ Wally mused to himself as he slipped a sweater over his head. He checked his suit for creases before buttoning it up and hooking its hanger onto a rack on the wall.

It was remarkably cozy, for a storage locker. He'd been spending a bit more time in it lately. The unit was nowhere near as comfortable as Hunter's apartment—a fact that Wally was determined to ignore most of the time—but it gave him the privacy he needed to learn to sew and add designs to his own outfits.

He folded the sunglasses and left them on top of one of the drawers before sitting back into his lawn chair and tying his sneakers, absentmindedly chewing his lip as he considered how he was going to spend his Thanksgiving break. And, more importantly, what and how he was going to tell his mother.

A minute and thirty seconds later and Wally was at his front door, only then realizing that he probably could have contemplated his plan—or dawdled—a little longer before heading home. He couldn't see his mother putting up much of an argument, but it was still a conversation he would rather avoid.

Of course, Wally thought to himself as he unlocked the door and walked inside, he would have rather avoided most conversations in general. Wally's previous outburst had mostly gone unaddressed. It didn't help that he had spent most of his time out of the house or shut in his room.

His mom was cutting vegetables at the counter and looked up at the sound of the door opening and closing.

“Hi, mom,” he said, his voice lacking the tenseness he felt. It didn't really matter though. Even if he could act like he forgot he had yelled at his own mother, she certainly hadn't forgotten.

“Wally,” she greeted a little awkwardly. “How was your day?”

“School's okay,” he shrugged, picking one of the cucumber slices and eating it. “Got a few midterms left, so I stayed after school a bit just in case. I'll do that.” He took the knife from his mom and finished dicing vegetables in a matter of seconds, ignoring the slightly panicked look his mother gave him. The speed that he diced food always seemed to terrify her. He _was_ a little fast, but Wally chalked the overprotectiveness up to a mother thing. “I, um... got a phone call today.”

Mary took a few steps and half-sat, half-leaned on the stool next to the counter, keeping her crutch within arms reach. “I'm guessing this is leading up to a bigger story.”

“It was Dad.”

Definitely glad he took the knife. She looked at Wally like he had just slapped her. He felt like he did. Wally felt more than a little guilty for the lie, but he ignored the feeling of fingers twisting in his guts. He couldn't just waste his most plausible excuse. An alibi that he could trust his mother not to confirm with his father. As far as he knew, they hadn't spoken since the divorce.

“I didn't know you were still talking to him,” she said stiffly, like it was hard to swallow.

“I wasn't,” he reassured her quickly. “But the holidays are coming up. And he doesn't have any company.”

“...You want to spend Thanksgiving with him.” his mom said slowly, as if trying to digest the words.

“Just a while,” he reassured her. “I'll be back for dinner. Dad was never really big on celebrations after you left, and you're a lot better at cooking.”

Wally made a silent vow to just stop mentioning Blue Valley, post-divorce, because every time he did, she had this pained look on her face.

“Right,” she finally nodded, long after the silence had gone awkward. “Of course. I don't know _what_ I was thinking; of course, you'd want to see your father from time to time. I can't believe I just assumed you left your entire life behind or something.” She shook her head as she laughed, but Wally only felt worse, hearing the self-deprecation in her laughter.

He wanted to tell her how he really felt about Rudy. How the man had become manipulative and cold. How he'd choose her over his father in a heartbeat because she was the one who loved him and she was better than his father, hands down.

“Yeah,” he said instead. “I want to see Dad.”

* * *

Hunter wasn't sure what to make of his own thoughts, which were darting all over the place, as they often did. That, being an occasional side effect of his own powers, didn't surprise him. Neither did the fact that his mind kept drifting back to Wally. It was perfectly reasonable to focus on Wally. Especially considering how _disastrous_ their last encounter had turned out. Hunter had finally managed to shake Wally off his tail, and it had been a result of the biggest mistake he’d made since, well, the week before last.

He had left Wally that message, saying that he wanted to talk, to explain himself. But he'd never got the chance to do so, not properly, not after Wally arrived only minutes after Hunter had left the voice message.

Hunter had needed _time_. Time to _think_. To clear his head and plan out what to do and how to do it and how not to fuck things up and _hurt_ him. He actually had a basic outline of all the things he meant to say to Wally, half-formed in his mind.

But the moment he had stepped out of the elevator, looked up to see Wally waiting just outside the door of his apartment, Hunter felt his heart suddenly start to pound, his palms sweat, and his chest tighten in panic as he couldn't remember any of the things he had intended to say. Hunter might have had some hopes that he could save their friendship, maybe resume things once the incident with the Rogues was nothing but a distant memory. He had his doubts now. In that moment, he had managed to mess up _everything_.

Hunter buried his face in his hands, rubbing the headache out of his forehead. He had actually told Wally he wasn't worth the effort of talking to Barry. So. Dumb. He was as bad as Roy.

No.

He dropped his hands from his face down to the table with a solid _'thump'_. No, even when Roy was harsh, it was rarely ever by accident. As hard as it was to wrap his mind around the fact, there was, in fact, a level lower than Roy, and that was where Hunter was trapped.

It wasn't just what happened with Wally that bothered him. He had chased Wally right into _Roy_. Roy and his god damn, freakishly muscular arms, Hunter thought to himself, one part mocking, two parts jealous of the way the archer had timed everything perfectly so he could practically sweep Wally off his feet. Wally never would have gone with him if Roy hadn't shown up at that exact moment, looking like the big damn hero he usually wasn't. Even more suspicious was the fact it felt like Roy had just been _waiting_ to sweep in and lure Wally away.

What the hell had Roy been doing there, anyway? It seemed odd for Roy to go to his apartment, seeing as he had no business with Hunter.

Hunter tapped his finger impatiently on the surface of the table, unable to take his mind off how _odd_ that was. How suspicious. Roy. Had he been lying in wait for Wally? _Why_?

A thought came to him so quickly, he felt as if he'd been struck, struggling to respond just as quickly and failing.

Roy had come to Central City to investigate the Velocity 9 activity. Did he suspect Wally of being some part of the drug ring? Did he want to _use_ Wally to find out more?

Impossible.

Ridiculous.

He wouldn’t _dare_.

But it was the only answer he could come up with.

His first thought was to pick up his phone and try to call Wally again, but he resisted the urge. It was impulsive and thoughtless and what would he say? He couldn't talk to Wally. He couldn't face Wally. He could definitely face Roy. Hunter stood up, his chair grinding against the wooden floors, awkward and loud in his empty flat when he didn’t have the company of a friend. He ignored the odd, misplaced feeling of loneliness in favor of curiosity and the investigation of his suspicions.

There was no way Roy would do something like that, not after Hunter had made himself the prime example as to why you didn't put civilians, put _the Flash's nephew_ , in danger. But if Roy was at the end of his rope...

Hunter pulled on his jacket and grabbed his keys and cell phone before heading out the doorway.

If Roy _was_ willing to do something so stupid, Hunter wasn’t going to let him. Wally had had more than his fair share of Hunter and Roy's line of work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys. Been busy working, focusing on my health, recovering from a few injuries, working a new job, and training for a tournament. On the bright side, I have won the tournament. You are looking at the women's steel longsword champ. [Huargh.](https://itsxandy.tumblr.com/post/141401703096/awwww-yissss) I want to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been three years since I've started The Sting, and I've only posted five chapters. I am Ashamed. Normally I try to cut the chapters so they're about 3-4k each, to keep it kind of consistent and keep me from posting too fast for me to keep up but.... sheesh, have all 9k. Just have it, because man, I am sorry.

Roy wasn’t used to taking the backseat on a mission. If there was action, he was usually the cause of it. If he needed to gather information, he was the one going in under cover. If he was on a job, he was always  _involved_. 

He checked settings on the laptop, making sure their communications software and recording programs were all properly calibrated and everything was in its proper place for the fifth time in the last few minutes.

“Nothing has changed since the last time you checked,” Kaldur reminded him, a quiet bit of reprimand in his voice, but Roy knew the Atlantean was just as restless as he was. Kaldur didn’t usually fidget the way Roy did, but he often had an even more active role in missions than Roy, his powers providing him a level of adaptability Roy couldn’t match without a heavy arsenal. All Kaldur needed was a supply of water that he could easily carry around in his waterbearers. He paused, looking at the clock on the laptop. “It is time.”

Roy immediately pulled the headset over his ears and flicked on the device attached to the computer. Almost immediately, he heard the Kid speaking on the other end. 

“Ring, ring, anybody home?” he asked. 

“Kid,” Roy said. “Are you there?” 

"Waiting on you, Red,” the thief said blithely. “I’m about to head into the meeting site in a few minutes.”

“It’s early.”

“I’ve been cooped up in here for almost two days,” the Kid said, not specifying where ‘here’ was. Roy didn’t ask the Kid to be more specific about his location, though. He doubted he’d get a straight answer.

“Meet me at Falmore Court Motel then,” Roy said. “Room 52.”

“Feeling frisky?” he asked, and Roy could practically hear the grin on the Kid’s face. “Now, now, what would the Aquawife have to say about that?”

Kaldur looked up at the sound of the Kid’s nickname for him, looking about ready protest the title, but Roy didn’t want to risk any bickering between the two. The Kid was civil enough, but he didn’t seem altogether too fond of Kaldur.

“Just shut up and get over—” Roy said, but he was interrupted by the sound of knuckles rapping on the wooden door of his and Kaldur’s room. “—here.”

Kaldur went for the door, checking the peephole before opening it. He nodded to Roy, a silent ‘Yeah, it’s him,’ and opened the door. 

“Nice digs,” the Kid said, walking past Kaldur and into their motel room without any preamble. He hadn’t so much as glanced at his surroundings, walking straight over to Roy with Kaldur following behind. “What do you want? We already finished calibrating the audio, didn’t we? I thought I was all set.” He tapped his finger against where his ear was under his new mask.

“No, the audio is fine. Though adjusting it would have been a lot easier if you’d just stuck with your old mask,” Roy said. 

“This is warmer!” the Kid insisted, resting his hands against his cheeks. The previous domino mask that had only covered a small part of his face had been traded in favor of a cowl more similar to the Flash and Zoom’s. Today, he had chosen a dark red color, apparently to match his waistcoat. It was a little disconcerting, how familiar the Kid seemed whenever he wandered to the corner of Roy’s eye. Whenever Roy found himself distracted by the familiarity, he had to force himself to look directly at the Kid and tell himself this wasn’t another superhero he was working with. It wasn’t Flash or Zoom. It was the Kid. There was nothing familiar about him. 

The Kid might’ve meant well, but he wasn’t a hero or a friend.

The thief met Roy’s eyes anxiously, and he realized he’d been looking too long. Roy cleared his throat.

“Your sunglasses. When you get the opportunity, switch them out for something else. They’re too loose, and they’ll definitely fall off too easily,” Roy said. “Plus, you look like a douche, wearing them indoors.”

The Kid scoffed a little and tapped his forehead, where the mask ended, just above his brow. “I tried to cut this so it covered more of my face,” he said. While the half-cowl covered most of his head, hiding his hair and obscuring the angles of his cheekbones and jawline, the front of his face was exposed everywhere the domino mask had once covered. The Kid lined his fingers against his cheeks, just beneath his eyes, to mimic the shape of his former mask. “But then I looked in the mirror and...” 

He stopped in mid-sentence, his voice trailing off as he finished with a lame shrug, unsure of what to say. 

Apparently, Roy surmised, the Kid was none too fond of that look, with the cowl pulled down over his eyes to mask his own face. No, not only did he not like it, it made him  _uncomfortable_. Kaldur glanced at Roy, apparently reaching the same conclusion. There was something about that look, and Roy was pretty sure it had something to do with the growing resemblance to Central’s resident heroes.

“Plus, it was easier to just cut it a straight line across my forehead and buy a pair of sunglasses than measure out the edges to make sure the parts that go over the eyes are, well, even,” the Kid finally said, raising his index fingers level with his eyebrows. “I didn’t have the patience to make these really fancy.”

“But you had the patience to sew each mask by hand,” Kaldur pointed out, but the Kid shrugged him off. 

“I might not have had much patience for the little details, but I  _did_  have some excess time on my hands,” he said vaguely. “But I’m going to assume you wanted to do something more than talk fashion to me.”

“When working in groups, Red Arrow and I usually do briefings before missions.”

“‘Working in groups’ is kind of pushing it a little, isn’t it?” the Kid asked. “I mean, you’re sitting here recording me and taking notes. I’m the one doing all the legwork here.”

“Which you insisted on,” Kaldur pointed out. The Kid shrugged again in response, having nothing really to say to that. It was the truth, after all, and the Kid didn’t seem too bothered by the fact, either. 

“So, the, ah...  _mission_ ,” the Kid said. A pleased grin spread across his face with the word. “Brief me.”

“Our target is to find the person producing the Velocity 9 drug,” Kaldur began. The Kid’s smile instantly smoothed out and became a carefully blank face, all traces of good humor gone, replaced by determined professionalism. “Our primary goal for now is to identify him and, if possible, detain him and send him to the League for questioning.”

The Kid thought for a moment before nodding. “Okay, we already established that,” he said. “What else?”

“We checked out the address of the meeting site you gave us,” Roy said. It had taken time to pry that from the Kid, who had been particularly closed-mouthed on the subject. He had to struggle to keep control of the conversation, constantly reassuring the Kid that he and Kaldur wouldn’t just take the address and hijack the Kid’s mission, as tempting as it was. “It’s a building, still in construction but close to completion.” 

“What’s so special about that?” the Kid said, not sure of the significance of the location.

“In a place like that, if something happens, it’s easier to pave over the evidence,” Roy said. “And yeah. It is exactly as it sounds.”

The thief looked a bit disconcerted by what Roy said, but he didn’t show any sign of backing down. “Well, luckily I’m not easy to catch.”

“But you did plan for it in case you were caught, right?” Roy mentally scanned the Kid for any signs of a weapon, but there wasn’t a single familiar bulge of bunched up material where holsters were usually kept.

The Kid hesitated, which Kaldur picked up on. “Are you unarmed?” Kaldur asked, and the Kid looked away in the face of the Atlantean’s disapproval. “We instructed you to find some way to protect yourself. You do realize that if something were to happen, you could be looking at dozens of angry, violent criminals boxing you inside a room,” he pressed. “Even if Red Arrow and I were there to provide support, between the three of us, we would still be outnumbered, outgunned, and overpowered. You are saying you didn’t even try and prepare at all?”

“What, you think I could have become some kind of black belt in a week?” the Kid asked.

“You could’ve picked up some basic footwork or training,” Roy said. “Hell, you could’ve picked up a baseball bat!”

“Considered it, and no,” the Kid said. “I’ve got my lockpick set. They’re sharp, if that makes you feel any better.”

“It  _doesn’t_  make me feel any better. What would you do with that,  _poke_  people with it? That’s not going to cut it here. You’re dealing with killers and convicts,” Roy argued, but he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned his neck to meet Kaldur’s eyes and felt most of his frustration seep away, not completely gone, but willing to wait just a few moments longer to hear what Kaldur had to say.

“Perhaps,” Kaldur murmured in the calm, steady voice he used to maintain control of tense situations, “we should call the Justice League for assistance on this mission.”

Roy fought back the urge to immediately protest. While he had long ago settled his issues with the League and earned his position as one of their equals, relying on the Justice League for help in a tight spot always felt like an affront to the independence and respect he had struggled to achieve.

The Kid, however, automatically revolted at the idea. “What? No,” he said. “No way. Not gonna do it. I won’t work with the League. We agreed on that.” He glared at Roy a little extra viciously for his lack of protest, though part of its effect was lost through the sunglasses he wore.

“We also agreed you wouldn’t walk into a possible trap unarmed,” Roy reasoned. “You don’t know anything about hand-to-hand combat, you have nothing on you but a set of  _toothpicks_ , and your costume was tailor-made to  _look good_ , not protect you.”

“What, you expect me to just pick something up? Look, I don’t want to run around with sharp objects, and something heavy enough to effectively hit a person with is also heavy enough to throw me off my game, and like I said, one week is not enough time to turn into some ninja fighting champion. If something happens, I’ll just  _run_. It’s what I do.”

“It wouldn’t be an issue to call upon the League just this once,” Kaldur tried to reason with the Kid. “It takes twenty minutes to assemble members of the Justice League. It would take only twenty seconds alone, to get the Flash.”

“And in the time it takes to call him, I’ll run over to the Network and warn them that their party is about to get crashed,” the Kid said threateningly, “and then I’ll just use  _that_  to brown-nose my way further into their operation. I have to do this myself, and if you’re not doing this with me, my way, then I’m walking out that door and going into that meeting alone. You will never get an opportunity like this ever again.”

The threat seemed to weigh the air down. Roy knew it wasn’t a bluff. The Kid meant every bit of what he said. If it weren’t for the fact that the Kid was threatening the operation just so he could get things done his way, Roy would have been impressed by his determination. Instead, he was just pissed because the Kid was going to get himself killed for no reason.

Finally, Kaldur spoke up. “When you go to the meeting, you will not cause any trouble, nor will you do anything to raise any flags with the Network,” he said, with patience that could have only been developed by experience as the former leader of a group of unruly superpowered teenagers. “You are only going to gather information, nothing else.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you guys were concerned,” the Kid said. “You worry too much. Running away from fights is my  _thing_.”

Kaldur was about to respond when he was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Hold on,” he said, heading towards the door. 

“You’re going to answer room service dressed like that?” the Kid asked, but his comment went ignored as Kaldur simply looked through the peephole. Instantly, he jerked his head back and turned around. “ _It’s Zoom_.”

“And  _that’s_  my cue to leave,” the Kid said. His voice was light and chipper, but he was already prepped to run, his eyes scanning the room for a way out and his body tense with the realization he was boxed in.

“Come on,” Roy said, grabbing the Kid by his arms and pulling him towards the bedroom, where the Kid would be able to leave through the sliding glass door. The Kid followed behind him without resistance, looking back over his shoulder every few steps at Kaldur, who stood in front of the door waiting for them to leave before opening the door for Hunter.

“Hey, you know, I’m more of a third date kind of—” the Kid rattled on as Roy shoved him into the bedroom. Roy was really beginning to get the idea that all the Kid’s banter wasn’t just idle fun. In fact, he was pretty sure it was a sign of faulty wiring in his brain, keeping him from filtering the words that left his mouth. It actually made for an interesting tell. The more excited or nervous the Kid was, the more he babbled and the less appropriate the babbling was.

“Shut  _up_ ,” Roy hissed. He stuck his head out of the door, nodding to Kaldur to let Hunter in before shutting the door.

“It’s time for you to...” he said as he turned around. He didn’t see the Kid. Roy walked up to the sliding glass door and glanced side to side for any sign of the Kid on the balcony, but he was nowhere to be seen. A rush of relief filled Roy. He didn’t know what Hunter was doing here, but he felt a lot more comfortable keeping him and the Kid as far apart as possible. “...to go,” he finished to himself under his breath.

“Just a second.”

Roy spun around on his heel to see the Kid had circled behind him, knelt down on one knee with his ear pressed against the door. The Kid had managed to sneak around behind him and didn’t even seem to realize his feat, his attention focused on whatever was going on in the next room.

“What’re you—?” Roy started.

“Shhh,” he hissed at the archer.

“It’s not your business,” Roy admonished him.

“The reason I’m even here is  _because_  I like to get all up in other people’s businesses,” the Kid scoffed under his breath. “Now quiet. I can’t hear over you.”

“If you get caught.”

“It’ll be very awkward. I know.” Even whispered, the words came out sounding unusually quiet and small. The Kid was almost always in motion, whether he was fidgeting with his hands or running his mouth, but to see him so still and intent was almost enough to give Roy whiplash. “I need to know.”

Roy glared down at the Kid for his blatant snooping, but the thief hadn’t even bothered to look up at Roy, too preoccupied with his eavesdropping to acknowledge Roy’s disapproval. Roy stood there for a few moments, considering what harm could really come of this. The Kid already knew Hunter’s greatest secret and hadn’t told anyone.

“What’s he saying?” Roy eventually asked, wondering what Hunter could have been talking about that had him so captivated. 

The Kid answered him with an annoyed sound and an offhanded wave. Eventually, Roy gave into his own curiosity and pressed his own ear against the door, ignoring the quiet snort that came from below him.

“...I don’t know how you came upon that conclusion—” he heard Kaldur’s muffled voice.

“It’s the only one that makes sense!” Hunter said, his voice loud and sharp enough to pierce through the closed door.

“They’re arguing,” the Kid said quietly as Roy’s ears adjusted to sound of stifled voices. “About... Wally...” he said hesitantly, sounding as if he was having trouble just saying the name. “And our mission.” 

Wally?

Roy wanted to say something. Wanted to question the Kid about his odd behavior. The reluctance to acknowledge Wally. The Kid was obviously familiar with who he was. In fact, he seemed almost bothered by the mention of him. Roy thought back to when the Kid asked about Zoom, whether Central’s superhero would be back on his feet and fighting crime soon. It made sense that he’d want a timetable to know when he ought to start adjusting his activity levels to avoid the vigilante, but his interest made Roy uneasy. He knew too much about Hunter’s personal life and, by association, too much about Wally.

Even Roy had made the mistake of interacting with Wally, and in doing so, he’d brought attention upon himself as a civilian. The Kid might not be an active enemy, but it had still been a careless security risk.

“Roy and I would  _never_  thoughtlessly involve a civilian in our operation. Furthermore, Wally is your friend and Barry’s nephew. We wouldn’t recruit him for anything to do with our work without taking it to either of you first,” Kaldur replied in his most reassuring voice. A tone of voice he rarely had to use with Hunter. Roy had never even heard Hunter raise his voice at Kaldur before. After several moments of tense silence, Kaldur finally broke the quiet. “Hunter. Why would you think we would?”

“I... Roy came by my place a while ago. Wally and I got into an argument, and the moment Wally was about to leave, Roy just showed up and went off somewhere with him.”

“And your first assumption was that we had recruited Wally to fight criminals alongside us?” Kaldur asked. 

“Not my first one...” Hunter said slowly.

“So it was your most logical one, then,” he said. 

“Roy showed up out of nowhere. At my apartment. To talk to  _Wally_?”

“He did have business with you. Roy was supposed to tell you we were planning on leaving Central because we found no trace of the V9 operation.”

“He couldn’t just call?”

“ _I_  sent him.” Kaldur paused, and with a note of disapproval, he added, “Which is why I suppose it hadn’t been a high priority with him and he chose to treat and accompany Wally to a meal instead.”

Roy winced. He had left some of the details out when he had relayed to Kaldur what had happened that night. Kaldur had been too preoccupied with the Kid’s offer to pay attention to the way Roy had mostly skimmed the meeting with Hunter that didn’t actually happen.

“You’re too optimistic, Kaldur,” Hunter groaned, a sentiment that Roy personally agreed with. “Roy and I can’t even sit in the same room without you to babysit us. I never got that message, though. The one about you guys leaving town. And obviously, you and Roy changed your mind. Did Roy find your lead that night? Just... out of nowhere?” 

Roy winced a little, hoping Kaldur would pick up on the sentence, and how it was a really bad idea for Hunter to follow that path of thought. A path where, any moment, Hunter could get curious and start asking questions that were better left unanswered. Particularly questions regarding who their lead was. Roy’s concern was unnecessary, however. 

“You’re changing the subject,” Kaldur said. Roy covered his mouth to smother a bark of laughter. Best method of misdirection ever.

“What? No, I’m not.” Hunter didn’t sound confident in his denial. Kaldur had actually caught onto something that Roy hadn’t.

“You’re hiding something. Roy took Wally out to dinner, and you assumed he had involved Wally with our work? You’re not one to jump to conclusions. You would not have come to this conclusion without a sort of reason,” Kaldur pointed out in a tone Roy found familiar. It reminded him of the days back when Roy was struggling to quit using. It was the same tone Kaldur used when he suspected someone was hiding things from him.

Kaldur and Hunter’s voices became hushed. Not being able to see what they were doing, hear what they were saying made Roy feel restless and curious, and he paid little attention to the irony that he was now even more focused on listening in on the conversation than the Kid was, the entire side of his head pressed firmly against the door. 

After several moments of muffled, indistinct conversation, Roy lifted his head from the cold wood and took a step back from the door. He paused for a moment before deciding to grab the Kid by the shoulder, pulling the thief back along with him. 

“What? What are you doing?” the Kid hissed, struggling to get back to eavesdropping, but unable to do so properly without worrying about making noises. 

“Don’t be late for that meeting. When you get there, you keep your head down. Stay out of trouble. Make exit strategies, because if you’re trapped in an enclosed space, you’re screwed. In fact...” Roy glanced around the bedroom before heading towards the closet, opening it slowly to avoid the creaking sound of old unoiled door hinges. 

The Kid followed behind him, a few paces back and standing beside the doorframe of the closet, and recoiled at the sight of knives as Roy opened one of his chests. “Dude, I told you,” he said stubbornly, “I’m  _not_  carrying any of that stuff. Running at a hundred miles miles per hour with sharp objects is a safety hazard.”

“Those knives are for carving arrows. I wouldn’t give them to you even if I liked you,” Roy told him as he pulled out his quiver, recently refilled on a supply run back in Star City. He took one of his arrows, snapped off the rounded head and handed it to Wally. 

“What is this?” Wally asked, shaking the arrowhead up and down.

“Medium grade explosive,” Roy said, enjoying the look of shock and fear that ran across the Kid’s face as he nearly dropped it. “It’s set to go off after it hits its target at high speeds. High impacts. If you run into something and knock this around, you have four seconds to throw it. It’ll stick to solid flat objects. Like walls.”

“So if I’m trapped in a room...” the Kid realized out loud. 

“It’s strong enough to take down a good piece of wall and give you more space to run. Use it carefully. We don’t want to make a body count.”

“Not to sound callous or, well, evil, but does that really matter? They’re dangerous people.”

“And if they’re dead people, you’ll end up making the evening news. We’re going for covert, Kid,” Roy said. He wasn’t sure if he had the patience to discuss the value of human life with a criminal. He closed the closet door, he headed for the glass pane across the room, carefully sliding it open to leave. “And if you steal anything from here while I’m gone, this partnership’s over and you’ll have the League down here taking over your operation so fast, even  _your_  head would spin.” 

“Where are you going?” the Kid asked as Roy carefully slid open the glass pane.

“Around the corner. I’m going in to see what’s going on,” Roy said. He dropped from the balcony, landing on the grass with practiced ease. He jogged lightly back up the stairs and to the front door of his and Kaldur’s hotel room once again.

Kaldur and Hunter had looked up as Roy entered the room, both of them seated at the small dining table, most of the papers and equipment there pushed to the side while Hunter and Kaldur were talking. 

“Oh. ...Hunter,” Roy said, pausing and staring silently at Hunter for a brief moment, as if he was taking in his presence. Hunter averted his eyes and glared resolutely at a spot on the wall. “Kaldur, why’s he here? I was having a perfectly good day.” 

Kaldur gave him a look, unamused by his antics, and sometimes he wished Kaldur would take his side more often. “Hunter wishes to speak to you about his friend, Wally,” he said sternly. 

“Yeah? Nice guy. Kind of  _thick_ , though,” Roy said, hiding a smirk when he found Hunter’s glare now focused on him. 

“Wally’s a  _genius_ ,” Hunter said stubbornly. 

“But he was also your friend,” he replied, now that that their mutual silent treatment was over. “So what would I know about Wally that you don’t?”

“Hunter believed you had gotten him involved in our operation. That he was our source of intelligence,” Kaldur explained. 

“Intelligence?” Roy repeated. “What kind of intelligence could Wally possibly have on our investigation?”

Hunter picked at his eyebrow anxiously before stopping and forcing his hands down, opening his mouth and closing it as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. 

“Tell him what you told me,” Kaldur said, in a slightly softer voice. A careful voice. The kind that coaxed out secrets whenever Roy was playing the ‘bad cop’. Roy never liked it when Kaldur coddled Hunter, treating him like an unstable time bomb. It might be true, but if that was the case, Roy didn’t want Hunter anywhere near Kaldur.

Still, Kaldur’s excessive coaxing seemed even stranger than usual, not because Kaldur rarely had to ask Hunter twice for an answer, but because Hunter actually seemed hesitant to respond. Hunter tapped the knuckle of his thumb against his forehead twice before allowing both hands to settle firmly on the table, as if he was bracing himself.

“Once, I caught Wally with V9.” 

Roy couldn’t believe it. Not that he knew the kid well, but he hadn’t really gotten any kind of impression that Wally had recently gotten over some sort of drug abuse problem. Not that the signs were always easy to spot, but some of the side effects of V9... they were hard to miss.

“... _What_?” 

“It was a while ago. He wasn’t using, but I’ve been keeping an eye on him since then,” Hunter said. 

“I don’t care whether he’s on it or not,” Roy spat. “Do you know how long Kaldur and I’ve been looking for a lead? You knew we couldn’t find anything, that we were stuck, and you were keeping this from us the entire time!”

“Wally’s  _not_  a lead,” he replied. “He didn’t know who it was he got it from and never saw them again.” His tone left little room for argument. Then again, Roy didn’t mind a tight fit, not when Hunter was being too damn stubborn to see the possibility of something going on right under his own nose. 

“Tch. Yeah, take it from me, that’s not how most drug buys work, Hunter,” Roy said. 

“ _You_  would know,” Hunter muttered under his breath. 

“Yes, in fact, I  _would_! I’m tired of you trying to throw that in my face just so you could take control of the conversation and steer the subject however you want. I did drugs, I got through it, I recovered, and that’s what matters. I’m not ashamed of it. The point is that  _you_  kept important information from us. Most dealers don’t deal to complete strangers. It’s almost always a ‘friend of a friend’ sort of thing.”

“He didn’t get it through a deal, he picked up some dude’s wallet and just made the bad choice of not going to lost and found,” he argued.

“Perhaps you are slightly biased in your judgement,” Kaldur said. 

“What, you think I can’t be objective?” Hunter asked him, his voice loud and angry, but fading into more of an angry neutral as his attention turned to Kaldur.

“No, I really don’t,” Roy said. “Even if he didn’t have any useful information on the people he worked with, he was still in possession of drugs, and you let him get away with it.”

“I didn’t. I watched him and kept an eye on him,” Hunter defended. “He’s okay. I cleared him, trust me—”

“You’re  _insane_ —”

Kaldur turned his head sharply to glare at and admonish Roy’s word choice. Kaldur never got a chance to open his mouth, and Roy never got to finish his sentence, suddenly aware of the fact that in the blink of an eye, Hunter had crossed the room and was only an arm’s length away from him. 

Hunter’s irises were a dangerously bright reddish brown and his arm raised for a strike, and the only thing that was stopping Hunter and Roy from an all-out fight was the slightly cool pressure at the base of both their throats. 

Kaldur had stepped in the moment he had realized the conversation had veered completely out of control. Hunter’s expression had gone completely blank and the red clearing from his eyes as he regained control of his instincts, and he stood stock still, particularly aware of the electricity in the air and the faint glow on Kaldur’s arms. 

Roy opened his mouth, about to point out the unnecessary magic thrumming at his throat, but Kaldur fixed a cool gaze upon him and shook his head. “I should remind you both that brawling in a hotel room would result in a suspicious amount of collateral damage,” he finally said, breaking the silence. His voice was quiet and cool, but hardly calm. He had never seen Kaldur in this sort of mood. But then, he didn’t make it a habit of pushing the limits of his temper either. “This is neither the time nor the place to start a fight. Hunter, what Roy meant to say is that you were being unrealistic in asking for his trust, given the current state of your friendship. And, Roy, you know what you did wrong.”

The faint buzz of Atlantean magic quieted and the cool palm relaxed around his throat. The threat of shocking Roy, even if only a small one to jolt Roy out of his rage, felt like overkill for simply pressing Hunter’s buttons. Then again, Roy supposed that psychologically, it helped put Hunter at ease a bit more quickly to see Kaldur in an impartial position between the two of them. The red in Hunter’s eyes faded back into their usual dull brown color. 

...Kaldur’s severe reaction wasn’t entirely unwarranted after all. It suddenly occurred to Roy that they had been about to have a serious fight on their hands. As much as he and Hunter had argued in the past and as close as they might have once been to blows, they had never gotten into a fight, and Roy never would’ve expected Hunter to throw the first punch. Personality-wise, Roy would have to admit to usually being the more aggressive one, though not always by much. The thought that they might get into a physical altercation never hit him as hard as it did now. Hunter’s hand had been startlingly close to his face, moving as fast as ever despite his crutches.

He wondered if the same thoughts were running through Hunter’s head.

“I shouldn’t have overreacted,” Hunter said, still glaring at Roy and making it clear that he was admonishing himself for his own actions rather than apologizing to Roy for them. Then, genuine contriteness crossed Hunter’s face. “I won’t do it again,” he added, more to Kaldur than anyone else.

Kaldur made a face but didn’t press Hunter, knowing he and Roy weren’t likely to get any more out of him.

“That’s not the main issue here, Hunter,” Kaldur said. “Your dedication to your mentor and your duties as a hero have always been one of your most notable traits. But you ignored your duty and failed to alert your mentor to the possibility that his nephew was involved with drugs. When the same happened with Roy, you didn’t hesitate to tell Green Arrow.”

“Well, that’s back before I knew Green Arrow was going to muck it all up,” Hunter said crossly. And Roy... couldn’t fault him for that part, he supposed. 

“I’m not going to try and debate what happened,” Kaldur wisely said. “I feel Roy was right. Your judgement is clearly skewed in Wally’s favor.”

“I’ve been watching him!” he argued. 

“Yeah?” Roy said. “How closely? Because I’ve heard a rumor, and really, no offense, but you’re not as sharp as you used to be.”

Maybe if was too soon after their near-fight to be drawing Hunter’s attention back to him again, but he couldn’t stop himself. It wasn’t in Roy’s nature to pull his punches or aim anywhere other than a weak spot. Thankfully, Hunter didn’t rise to the comment and simply fixed him with a cool stare. “What do you mean by that?” he said in a surprisingly even tone. 

“You slipped up once, dealing with the Network. We get that. But then you...” Roy struggled to find a word other than ‘snapped’ or ‘went crazy’. “You got weird.” Good enough. Hunter’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, probably knowing the words Roy was trying to avoid and not appreciating the kiddy gloves. “You broke up with Ashley, you gave up on trying to get into the FBI, you started working with the Flash again. No one who knew what happened would blame you for that. You needed to get away from chance and regain your footing on solid ground. But it’s been a year, and there’s been some talk that you’re not getting back on your feet.”

Something in Roy’s phrasing must’ve triggered a memory. At the last sentence, Hunter’s neutral stare became a concerned frown. “Did Barry say that about me?” he asked slowly.

“I didn’t say that,” Roy said quickly. Kaldur was going to kill him tonight. 

“ _Barry_  said that about me?” he repeated, mortification spreading to the rest of his face. 

Ah hah. Shit.

“ _No_. Look, if Barry was saying shit behind your back, I would not hesitate to rub your face in it,” Roy said, though Hunter didn’t look entirely convinced. “But you’re not as sharp as you used to be.”

“The matter we need to discuss,” Kaldur pressed, forcing the subject away from Hunter’s mentor, “is that your relationship with Wally creates a conflict of interest, and you, as his friend, may judge him leniently without even realizing it.”

“Just because he’s my friend doesn’t mean I went soft on him,” Hunter insisted. “I went through all the proper channels that an officer would’ve, and anything our team would’ve done. I’ve gone through his things. I took his fingerprints and ran it through the League databases, I went through the clothes he brought to Barry’s place and checked them for particulates. I pulled background checks on everyone in Missouri he’s ever interacted with,” Hunter said. “Which wasn’t very hard. He’s made friends with, like, a total of two people.”

“You can’t account for his every waking moment,” Kaldur pointed out. “What about the few hours he went missing with the Rogues?”

“You think he got involved with them?” Hunter asked incredulously.

Kaldur paused before shaking his head. “Doubtful, considering the fight he jumped into prior to his kidnapping. But seeing as the Rogues had no intention of keeping him, it does leave an unusually long time unaccounted for,” he said. 

Hunter took a moment to contemplate the answer. “I’ll text him,” Hunter finally said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Ask him about what happened in more detail since I never heard about it directly from him anyway.”

“That’s a start. Once we hear from Wally, we can compare that to what we know and see if there are any inconsistencies,” Roy said, a little relieved that Hunter was cooperating, even if only a little. Roy glanced at Kaldur, wondering if the idea had already occurred to him. They could use the Kid to see if Wally’s story checked out.

Hunter received a response almost immediately. That felt unusually fast. Hunter seemed thrown off by the instantaneous response, looking back down at his phone to check the message he received. 

“What does it say?” Roy asked.

Hunter just stood there, blinking and rereading the message a few more times before finally lowering the cell phone, a stupefied look on his face. Roy started to grab the phone and look at the screen himself, but Hunter pulled it away, out of reach, and shook his head. “He said I can look at the police report and figure it out myself.” 

“Do you think it’s possible he’s hiding something?” Kaldur asked. 

Roy laughed. He felt a little bad for Hunter, but Wally’s response hadn’t exactly come out of nowhere. From the rigidness of Hunter’s shoulders and the slight hint of guilt in his frozen expression, he was sure Hunter had come to the same conclusion as well. 

“Considering how he’s kind of been yanked around recently? I think he’s finally telling us exactly what’s on his mind,” he said. “Sorry, Hunter. Looks like he’s had it with you..”

Kaldur tended to be subtle in his expressions, but Roy was pretty sure he caught a glimpse of pity. “Mend things with Wally. V9 situation is currently contained and off the streets, but it seems unnecessarily careless. Wally’s lead is not likely to turn up anything vital to the situation, so his situation  _can_  be considered low-priority,” he said slowly. He glanced at Hunter. “It would, however, likely prove beneficial if you were to fix relations with him. If he’s involved with V9, we can follow up on this lead. If he’s not, then there’s no harm in mending your friendship.”

“I don’t think Barry—”

“Live a little,” Roy said. “Growing up means you’re going to have to step out of your comfort zone sometimes.”

Hunter fidgeted and shook his head. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ve got to go. Sorry about...” He stopped and then turned to Kaldur, ignoring Roy completely. “Sorry about all the trouble,” he finished, giving Roy a deliberate glance from the corner of his eye. 

“ _Dick_ ,” Roy muttered. He was pretty sure he got a smile before Hunter knelt down to pick up the crutches he had dropped in his, well, attempted assault on Roy. All in all, though, Roy wondered if things had maybe improved between them. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, and Hunter seemed equally determined to get some distance between them as he left the hotel room. 

Kaldur locked the door behind Hunter and immediately turned around to give Roy a scalding look which, from Kaldur, wasn’t always immediately recognizable to the casual viewer, but Roy had experience in spotting those expressions and immediately found himself drawing back.

“You’ve got to admit, this whole thing could’ve gone a lot worse,” Roy quickly said to Kaldur before he could scold him for poking at Hunter. 

Kaldur gave Roy that look that was usually reserved for idiots, like ones who would nervously glance at Kaldur after ordering anchovies on their pizza. “Well, it certainly was—”

“ _Intense_.”

Kaldur’s deceptively neutral expression lost its levity at the Kid’s interruption and quickly narrowed with disbelief.

“Or anticlimactic. It was definitely that too,” the Kid said. 

“...You’re still here,” Roy said a redundantly, glaring at the Kid as he appeared by the kitchen table. “ _What_  are you still doing here?”

“Listening to you old ladies gossip,” the Kid shrugged, though Roy could almost detect a note of irritation in the thief’s voice. 

“Why didn’t you leave the way I told you to?” Roy asked him.

“What, and miss out on that  _fascinating_  conversation about Zoom and this guy’s personal life? Why would I  _want_  to go?” he shrugged. “Besides, I couldn’t get out.”

“I showed you,” Roy said. “The open balcony, the same one I left.”

“ _Hah_ ,” the Kid scoffed, shoulders hunched and hands raised slightly as he shook his head. “Yeah, but no. I don’t do heights. Maybe you got that super-training when you were jumping off high rises and bridges with Green Arrow in Star City, but I have a thing about fourth-story balconies and jumping off them without space for a proper running start. Because, you know,  _running_  is my thing.”

“And listening in on other people’s conversations,” Roy said. 

“That too,” he agreed easily, and when he caught sight of Roy and Kaldur’s admonishing frowns, he rolled his head back with an exasperated sigh. His hat slipped for a split second before his hand shot up to catch it and he looked at them again, a sardonic twist in his smile. “Oh, don’t judge. That friend of yours just openly admitted to rooting through his friend’s things—” The Kid paused at the sound of a familiar ringtone. The room had fallen awkwardly silent, the Kid frozen in mid-sentence. Roy watched as the Kid shifted from surprised to nervous and then deliberately casual in a matter of seconds. “Excuse me, I have to take this,” he said, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.

Except it wasn’t his cell phone. 

It took Roy a moment to recognize the model, and then it hit him. He’d only heard that ringtone a  _dozen times_  that night he had taken Wally out for his consolatory dinner while Hunter had kept trying to call and text him. 

“That’s not your phone,” Roy accused. 

“Of course not.  _This_  one’s mine,” the Kid said, reaching for his other pocket and pulling his own phone out before putting it back away, all of his attention focused on the first cell phone in his hand the entire time. 

“What is this?” Kaldur asked. 

“That’s Wally’s cell phone,” Roy said. “Why do you have that?”

“I’m a thief. I thieve,” the Kid said by way of explanation. “Man, Hunter keeps leaving texts for him. This guy just doesn’t give up. Is that a superhero thing or is it just Hunter who can’t take no for an answer?”

“It’s  _Zoom_ , you mean,” Roy corrected him angrily. “You’re not his friend, you don’t get to call him that.” He paused. “... _You_  sent him that text! Saying you didn’t want to talk!”

“Well, the guy’s been ignoring his phone since he left on vacation. I don’t think he’s even noticed his phone is missing. I doubt he’s interested in anything Zoom has to say,” he said. 

“He and Zoom are practically each other’s personal lives. They’re friends—”

“Doesn’t seem like it to me. It seems like Zoom’s entire interest in Wally was founded on the fact that he wanted to  _spy_  on him,” the Kid said. The phone rang in his hands again and he read the texts expressionlessly and then began to type out a response. “It’s for his own good,” he added, but Roy interrupted whatever he was going to type, snatching the phone out of the Kid’s hands and tossing it over to Kaldur before the Kid could type anything out. 

“That’s enough, Kid,” Roy said.

“Hey, give that back!” he yelped, making a wild swipe for the phone, but Roy put himself between Kaldur and the thief.

“You break Zoom’s leg, put him out of the job, and then go after all of his friends and family?” Roy demanded.

“No!” he shouted, stepping side to side to try and get past Roy, only to find himself unable to do so. For his efforts, he earned a calloused palm in his face, pushing him back. “It’s... it’s nothing personal. It’s research!” he tried.

“Research?” Kaldur repeated. He didn’t sound entirely convinced. 

Roy wasn’t either. “For what?”

“I like my background checks, alright? Gives me a lot of insight on who’s who in the superhero community. Like, say, who makes for an easy target and a big distraction,” the Kid said. “Googling his name will only get so far, and he doesn’t exactly have MyFace. Going through his cell phone is a lot easier than rooting around his trash. Cleaner too. ”

“Why did you single out Wally?” Kaldur asked.

“He’s related to the Flash. He’s Zoom’s friend. He had dinner with you,” the Kid said, giving Roy a pointed look. “Why wouldn’t I? He seemed pretty important.”

Roy had a sneaking suspicion that this was probably how the Kid was piecing together everyone’s identities. Just being associated with a hero put people on the Kid’s radar. It made sense. The Kid had been using his knowledge of one identity to determine the identity of others. It explained why the Kid managed to track Roy down. He’d spoken to Hunter more than once, and then Wally, too, which had led the Kid right to him.

“Which begs the question: who is he?” Kaldur said suddenly, a comment that had instantly captured the attention of both Roy and the Kid.

“What do you mean by that?” Roy asked.

“What if Hunter, being a close friend of Wally’s, misjudged his integrity?” Kaldur asked, and even though Roy was pretty sure he could actually like the guy, Kaldur did have a point.

“He  _is_  pretty biased, definitely,” Roy had to agree. He turned to the Kid to explain. “When he found out I was using heroin, he didn’t hesitate to tell Green Arrow about my problem.”

“But he doesn’t like you,” the Kid said.

“We weren’t always at odds with each other. Zoom was trying to help me. The thing is, Green Arrow can’t keep his mouth shut to save his life, and it backfired. He’s probably trying to help Wally, too; he might’ve taken a lesson from what happened to me and decided against telling anyone about it.”

“Look, as fascinating as all this backstory is, I’m more interested in the fact that you think Wally West is working on my side of the law,” the Kid said.<

“Zoom may mean well, trying to keep Wally’s possession of drugs a secret, but in his attempt to avoid the same mistake he made with Red Arrow, he may be ignoring the possibility that Wally’s drug possession may indicate a deeper connection to Velocity 9. He  _is_  the Flash’s nephew. It’s possible he could have realized this and somehow used this connection to obtain the secret to the superspeed formula.”

“Okay,” the Kid laughed, his hands covering his face. It wasn’t that funny, but it took a while for him to recompose himself. “This guy was one of two members of the Flash fan club when he was in high school. He had a blanket with the Flash symbol on it. He  _still_  buys the T-shirts. If he knew the Flash was his uncle, he’d probably ask him to autograph his boxers. In fact, if he  _did_  find out the formula, he’d use it on himself. He wouldn’t be selling this to anyone. His own dad had to stop him from experimenting on himself as a kid because he kept trying to be like the Flash.”

As amused as the Kid sounded, by the end of his rant, Roy thought he heard something almost derisive in the thief’s tone. Before he could call him out on it, however, Kaldur spoke up instead. 

“You seem to know a lot about Wally West,” he commented. While he didn’t have many tells, Roy knew Kaldur well enough to spot the slightest narrowing of his eyes as Kaldur grew suspicious. “How long have you been looking into him?”

“Pretty long time. I followed the Flash and Zoom to a cafe where they fought Captain Boomerang a while back,” he said. “After they finished, Iris introduced her nephew to them. Later, Zoom got into a fight with Mirror Master, and Wally was there too. The moment I realized I had research to do was when Zoom’s team was going to infiltrate a chemical convention and Wally just happened to be there to stop that Red X guy from getting away. That’s when I realized—or, well,  _thought_  he was a part of  _your_  team.”

“You seem to have kept a close eye on him,” Kaldur said.

“Yeah?” the Kid said, shuffling nervously from side to side. “So what?”

“So how did you miss the fact that Zoom found his friend with V9?” Kaldur asked, his voice suddenly quiet but demanding, and the Kid froze. “...You knew. Which begs the question as to why didn’t you tell us that Wally had it.”

Roy saw the point Kaldur was making. Just because the Kid had told them he thought Wally was a hero didn’t mean it was true. As far as Roy and Kaldur knew, Wally could’ve been shady the entire time and the Kid was covering up for him for whatever reason. Just because he was family to the Flash didn’t automatically make him a good guy. In fact, he was in a prime position, almost guaranteed to be automatically cleared of suspicion. It was an unbased hypothesis, but one that could’ve easily snuck up upon them.

“I, uh... mehbanchung,” the Kid mumbled, his words becoming more and more incoherent, suddenly sounding as if he’d put his foot in his mouth. His shoulders slumped, and he looked as if he ought to be sitting in the corner. Kaldur and Roy stood there, silently watching and waiting for him to give them a real answer. Finally, once he realized there was no way to deflect the question, he shrugged. “I may’ve been watching him,” he finally said, enunciating his words carefully.” ...Wally’s working with a researcher on campus. He took the drug to a lab on campus to run tests on it.”

“That doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell us,” Kaldur said.

The Kid took a deep breath. “He wants to make a drug that would counteract the effects of V9 so that anyone with enhanced speed could be brought down to normal.”

“This is something you should have told us from the start,” Roy said. “If this mission goes wrong, that’s exactly what we would need to keep this drug and its effects under control.”

“I didn’t see a point in setting you guys up for disappointment. If it doesn’t work, it’s not worth looking into. If it does work, I’m going to need to make sure it never leaves the lab.” At Roy and Kaldur’s outraged looks, the Kid shrugged. “Oh, come on, can you imagine how disastrous this cure could be? What if it works on the Flash? Or, more importantly, me? I’ve got to watch my own back.”

That… made sense. 

And it was also a chilling reminder that they were, in fact, working with a criminal. Someone more interested in serving himself. Bringing justice to the Network was just a side effect and a means to an end in this particular case. Wally’s work on V9 could be helpful to the mission, but it was a potential danger to the Kid.

Hunter’s injury was proof that the Kid didn’t respond well to danger.

“Then we will watch Wally’s,” Kaldur said. 

“Yeah, I know how much you guys like doing that,” the Kid muttered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kaldur demanded.

“You see, with me, at least it’s normal. I look, and I don’t touch unless I have to. I mean you guys. First his aunt pressures Hunter and him into getting together and being friends. Hunter takes advantage of the fact that he doesn’t have anyone else, so when he talks to him, Wally just automatically opens up like a... like a complete  _chump_. Doesn’t even realize that Hunter only  _acted_ like he was his friend so he can nose around more easily,” the Kid sneered. “I guess this is the kind of special treatment the Flash’s nephew gets, huh?”

“They’re friends  _now_ ,” Roy said, defending Hunter, because even if they didn’t get along and even if Hunter had a kind of backwards way of meeting people, he still meant well enough, and he definitely liked Wally. He wouldn’t have been willing to hide the evidence of Wally’s drug possession otherwise.

“They weren’t friends in the first place,” the Kid scoffed. “The worst part is, he probably would be willing to overlook how everyone treats him if they keep trying to cozy up to him long enough. You know that. Hunter knows that. Even his father did. You can ignore him for, like, four years, call him up, and still get him eating out of your hands.”

“Where the hell is this coming from?” Roy asked, thrown off by how suddenly the Kid was standing up for Wally. “What’s this about his father?”

The Kid made a disgruntled sound. “Maybe if he hasn’t told you, it’s not your business,” he said.

“If his father’s abusive, it is,” Kaldur said firmly. 

At those words, the Kid looked ready to have an apoplectic fit. “No.  _Hell_  no. Wally. He doesn’t need your help. He doesn’t need friends who pry into his personal life just to save him from every little inconvenience. He doesn’t need—need someone like  _Hunter_ , who thinks being a ‘friend’,” he said, sarcastically air-quoting the word, “means watching his every move and yanking him around whenever he’s having an emotional crisis.”

“You spy on him, too,” Roy accused, only to get scoffed at in response.

“Yeah, but  _I’m not his friend_!” the Kid said breathlessly, torn somewhere between laughter and anger. “If this is what friendship is like, I think he’s really better off without it!”

“The last thing he needs is to end up struggling by himself like you,” Roy snapped back.

“ _Roy_ ,” Kaldur chided immediately, probably more out of wariness of the Kid’s reaction than disagreement with Roy’s sentiment.

The Kid took an unusually long moment to respond. He even blinked slowly, as if trying to control his every action. Roy wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. He was surprised the Kid hadn’t tried to shut him up with a fist to the face by now. Eventually, he stalked out of the room.

“Too late,” the Kid hissed under his breath, so quiet Roy and Kaldur almost missed the comment, and before either of them could question him on the comment, the Kid was out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a hell of a year, and I'm afraid it's been so long, I've forgotten a lot of the details of the story at a kind of vital arc where the details matter a lot. I've been debating whether to continue writing and just try to deal with an imperfect story and fill in plot holes wherever I can, but this has been an emotional investment that I've been struggling to keep up with. I've moved on to other fandoms, started writing other stories (never really posting them, though, because I really am kind of ashamed of working on something new before I've come even close to finishing this one). I have other hobbies, kinda sorta, playing video games, trying to be social, trying to keep in shape so I can fenve well. I've also been dealing with some Drama. A lot of it, actually. But I'm now in reasonably good mental and physical health, I've got a roof over my head, and I've got time to make things right. These past few months may have had the worst and most emotionally exhausting shit crammed up in it, but I think I've also made a lot of personal progress in that time.
> 
> I'll keep doing this as long as I can, alright? Thanks for reading and sticking around for so long.


	7. Chapter 7

Wally’s feet pounded against the pavement, the sounds of his footfalls muted by the shoes that Gambi had finally designed for him. He waited a few moments and raised a hand to his ear, debating as to whether or not he felt up to switching on the earbud that would put him in connection to Roy and Kaldur again before deciding that, no matter how angry he was, it wasn’t worth being alone right before his first mission ever.

_“Kid? Kid!”_  he heard Roy shouting through the earpiece.

“ _What_?” Wally responded irritably. “Quit shouting so loud.”

_“You weren’t answering your comm.”_

“No one likes a whiner. I just left, like, thirty seconds ago. God, you’re clingy,” Wally muttered before running off again, this time at a slower jog. The earbuds used bone conduction to transmit sound, so Roy and Kaldur could hear past the wind that whipped around him as him as he ran, but it didn’t make talking at that speed any more pleasant. 

_“What happened to Wally? What did you mean when you said we were ‘too late’?”_

“I didn’t say too late. I said  _I’m_  late,” Wally lied through clenched teeth.

“The meeting hasn’t started yet,” Roy said, sounding unconvinced, but Wally didn’t care, so long as he could steer them away from the topic of the earlier conversation.

“Well, I wanted to be early, so if I was on time, I’d be late,” Wally said.

_“Are you sure you are fit to go on this mission?”_  Kaldur’s voice interjected into the conversation.

“You’re asking if I’m alright? I’m about to go where no hero’s gone before. I’m  _excellent_ ,” Wally said.

_“Will you at least tell us what got you so riled up?”_  Roy asked.

No.

At Wally’s lack of response, Roy tried again.  _“Look, I know you and I disagree over how Wally should be handled—”_

“You handle objects. You handle nuisances and problems,” Wally interrupted, unable to stop himself from snapping at Roy. “And, if you keep trying to have these little heart-to-hearts with me while I’m about to risk my life going undercover with a bunch of crooks from all across the country, I’m throwing this earbud away and doing this job solo. All by myself. I don’t need any distractions. I don’t need to discuss what’s on my mind. We’re not friends, Red.”

“ _Fine. We’re not, I get it,_ ” Roy agreed easily, “ _but we_ are _working together. Just... keep your head clear and stay light on your feet._ ”

Clear. He was definitely clear-headed. So clear, in fact, that he could probably describe himself as feeling drained empty. With all the ups and downs today, the fears, the panics, the near-discovery of his identity as he was caught with his own phone, Wally was beginning to feel too  _tired_  to feel. “I’m always light on my feet,” he replied in a clipped tone.

“ _Where are you?_ ”

“A block from the building. Still under construction, like you said.”

“ _Exit strategies. It should be easy enough to get out of a bad situation if you're on the upper levels, but avoid sublevel floors. It's easier to jump out of a second-story window than to crawl out of the ground._ ”

“That's reassuring,” Wally murmured. “Anything else?”

“ _Nothing I haven't already gone through with you,_ ” Roy said.

“I'm going ahead then,” he said. 

Wally darted forward. The building wasn’t quite decrepit, but it had a distinctly unlived in atmosphere that made his presence feel uncalled for. Unwelcome. The chain link fence kept most passersby out, but it was more out of principle than out of actual security. One could see a sizable gap in the fence upon taking a closer look. Wally passed through the opening and then through the unlocked doors of the building.

The hallway was mostly unlit, except for the blinking source of light at the far end. Wally stopped for a moment, taking his time to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness, and resisted the urge to remove his sunglasses. He was better off leaving them alone. 

Wally took his time, walking forward at a sedate pace. No rush. Each step he took, his eyes adjusted a little more, and he could see the flickering light was the movement of two people up ahead. If one of the heated voices was anything to go by, they were apparently having some sort of argument about who was and was not on the guest list. 

“Ye don’t know who yer messing wi’,” one of the men said threateningly in a heavy accent.

“You’re right,” the other said lazily. It was a younger man, blond and looking rather unconcerned, not even bothering to look up from his handheld video console. “Because I can barely understand a single word you just said.”

There was more shouting on the older man’s part. Between his heavy accent and slurred words, Wally couldn’t quite make it out, but the blond cut him off in mid-tirade, waving his hands dismissively.

“Look, man. I know who you are,” he interrupted. “But boss-lady doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore, so get out of here, sober up, and learn to speak English.”

If the blonde was about to add anything to that, Wally never found out what he was going to say, because the conversation was cut short by the sound of a scuffle.

Wally ran forward. He wasn’t necessarily eager to get into a fight, but... well, he could earn some brownie points, helping the Network’s “doorman” deal with an unwanted guest.

He got there in seconds and pulled the angry mercenary off the blond. Wally really didn’t expect the man to take his interruption laying down and predictably turned on Wally, pushing him back against the wall. He brought his hand up, making sure his hat stayed firmly perched atop his head, and ducked beneath the mercenary’s quick jab, which left a dent in the plaster wall behind Wally. The second blow, a thrown elbow, came even faster. Wally was almost impressed. He ducked a little to the side and brought his knee up between the other man’s legs. 

He was greeted by the sound of a pained groan and a mirthful ‘ooooh’. The mercenary toppled down to the ground with long, drawn out moan, giving Wally a clear view of the other man, who had also collapsed to the ground. 

Wally waited out the laughter, patient by his own standards, as the blond covered his eyes with a hand and laughed hysterically against the opposite wall. “Holy shit. I could’ve handled it myself, but  _damn_ ,” he said, wiping his eye, though there were no signs of a tear to wipe, with his eyes covered by a misshapen blue mask. 

“Well, I’m not the patient type, and I didn’t feel like waiting this guy out,” Wally said with a shrug as the blond straightened himself up. He held up the slip that Blacksmith had given him. “My name’s Kid.”

“Ah, yeah,” the bouncer said with a nod, pulling out a pencil and a slip of paper from his pocket. With his tongue sticking out of a corner of his mouth, he crossed a line across the paper. “The meeting’s straight ahead. I’ve got trash to dump,” he added, giving the man on the ground a not-so-light nudge with his foot.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Wally nodded, and he walked ahead through the doors and into a room.

The room was too large to be a meeting room, too small for an auditorium. If Wally was to guess what it would be for once the building was finished, he would say it was probably a cafeteria. It was already filled with a handful of people, most of them dressed to the nines like himself. He found it inexplicably irritating. It bothered him, but he wondered if it was the same kind of discomfort that came from the Rogues, who lacked any sort of rigid sense of formality completely. He’d gotten pretty used to sticking out among them, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about fitting in with these criminals now. These white collar criminals. It was a step up that he didn’t quite like. 

Some of them, he recognized, people he’d seen or heard of on the news, but he couldn’t quite put any names to the faces he saw. He walked past a few of the conversations, listening in on a few, but it was all dull. Conversation fluff, nothing more substantial than the weather. 

A flash of purple caught his eye, and Wally looked directly up to see a familiar purple-caped figure leisurely floating above the crowd, keeping an eye on everyone, it seemed. 

“Oh, hey!” Wally said, loud enough to catch her notice, but not so disruptive that he’d end up at the center of the attention of everyone in the room. “Mags. Madge? Madge.”

“It’s  _Magenta_ ,” she said, after a brief start that had her scanning the entire room for whoever had been trying to address her. “What do you want?”

He waved. “Hey, come down!” he said brightly and, after looking around the rest of the room to see if anyone else was watching their exchange, she lowered herself, hovering a few inches off the ground, over Wally’s head. “Ah, man, and just when I was thinking there wouldn’t be anyone my age to talk to,” he grinned. “And then I see you. You’re not doing anything, I’m not doing anything... we’ve got a lot in common!”

“I’m  _working_ ,” Magenta said. 

“But I’m bored!” Wally told her. 

“Go entertain yourself.”

“I am,” he said, and Magenta glared at him angrily, opening her mouth to send him some sort of scathing remark, but he held up his hands apologetically. “I mean, who else am I supposed to talk to? Those guys? I don’t know them. And I’m pretty sure whatever they’re talking about, I’m not interested in. You? You’re more up my alley.”

_”What are you doing, Kid?_ ” Roy asked through the headset.  _”You’re on a mission, not hitting up girls you meet in the black market_.”

Wally didn’t respond, of course. Magenta scoffed. “You’re not my type,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest with a narrowed gaze, though she made no move to leave.

“I think you’re being too hasty to judge me,” Wally said, taking up the challenge. “I’m not that bad, am I? What is it about me that shouts ‘absolutely not’?”

“You’re wearing sunglasses indoors for one,” came the immediate response, and Wally ignored the snort of laughter that came from his headset, his head rolling up in exasperation.

“What is it with everyone and the glasses?” he asked. “Everyone keeps picking on that!”

“You look like the biggest tool in the universe.”

“A bigger tool than that totally radical blond over there?” Wally asked, nodding towards the guy who stood guard at the door. 

“Who— _oh_.” Magenta had followed his gaze to the blond. Her mouth twisted, definitely amused, even if she was doing her best to hide it. “ _Axel_.”

“He doesn’t exactly seem like the kind of guy you’d meet in organized crime,” Wally noted, eyeing the yellow plaid pants and striped top Axel wore.

“He’s new. And he’s not a part of Amunet’s Network, he’s on my team.”

“Your team? You’re not a part of the Network?” 

Magenta paused. “Technically, we are. But we don’t get involved with the business side of it,” she answered. “But when Blacksmith needs something done, she sends us to do it.”

Wally looked her up and down. Her costume was made of some sort of metallic fabric that hardly seemed practical for the kind of low down sort of business someone like Blacksmith would send her on. At the same time, something about her clothing felt off. If he were to guess, Blacksmith probably didn’t want her wearing her battle armor in a meeting of multimillionaires. Her choice of attire clung onto her body in all the oddest places, and the color stood out. Odd, but not bad. And now that he had a better view of her, her hair seemed unreal as well, too solid, too stringy, and... constantly moving. 

“Do you... mind?” he asked, pointing at her hair. Magenta looked at Wally with a neutral, indecipherable expression before nodding. 

“Go ahead,” she said. He raised a hand to a lock of her hair, which practically rose to meet his fingers. 

“You’re  _metal_ ,” Wally whispered excitedly. 

“Technically, I’m shaping metal.”

Wally eyed her clothing. It wasn’t an exact match, but the coloring, the general shape... 

“Magenta... Magnet— _oh_ ,” Wally grinned. “I see what you did there, you  _nerd_.”

Magenta looked surprised at the unexpected name calling before finally cracking a small smile. 

“Metahuman and proud,” she said. “No one else’s really ever commented on it.”

“Seriously? He’s only, like, the most famous of Marvel supervillains,” Wally said. 

“Well, in the service, there were a few rules about what we were allowed to wear,” Magenta shrugged. “Same here, I guess, though Blacksmith lets me get away with the purple cape,” she added with a smirk.

“Work it,” Wally nodded. 

_”Kid,”_  Roy said.  _”I’m sure it’s already occurred to you, but I’m going to reiterate it for you just in case: you’re bonding over comics with Blacksmith’s right hand assassin.”_

“Sorry, but my statement holds. You’re not my type,” Magenta repeated. Wally didn’t mind though. She was a lot less standoffish than before, which was always a win.

“What’s it take to be your type?” he asked. 

“A bit of normalcy,” she said. “I’m not sure I’m into the whole costume thing anymore.”

It took a minute for it to click. “You’re into  _civilians_ ,” he rephrased. “...Power play sort of thing?”

“ _No_ ,” Magenta shook her head. “Not something kinky, if that’s what you mean. I just want to meet someone nice for a change.”

“I can be a nice guy,” Wally said. 

The side of Magenta’s mouth quirked up to a side, giving Wally a kind of a pitying smirk. “Then you shouldn’t be here,” she said to him. 

Wally was saved the trouble of finding an adequate response when their conversation was interrupted by another voice. “I don’t think that’s an appropriate thing to say to my guest, Magenta,” a familiar voice said. Wally deliberately avoided jerking at the touch of a hand on his shoulder, looking up at a mostly normal speed to see Blacksmith standing behind them.

“Blacksmith,” Magenta said, sounding slightly flustered despite her detached expression. “I—”

“Go and get the presentation ready,” Blacksmith said dismissively, not really caring enough to hear what Magenta had to say. 

“I didn’t say anythi—”

“ _Francis_ ,” Blacksmith said. Wally’s attention kept bouncing between the two during their exchange. Magenta started to open her mouth to speak up and say something, but instead she shook her head and floated off to follow her orders. “She used to be so  _good_  at taking orders,” Blacksmith sighed. “What has she told you?”

“Um... that guy Axel is a total tool,” Wally said, making a note to himself not to bring up anything that sounded like sensitive information. “And she doesn’t like my sunglasses.”

Blacksmith held up a finger, one of her long nails dragging against the line of her jaw. “You changed your look,” she said thoughtfully. 

“I figured Zoom could come back any day now, might as well be ready to run if he’s pissed,” Wally answered. “Switched to a cowl so I don’t have to worry about my mask falling off when I up the speed.”

“I see,” she said, and Wally was beginning to think Blacksmith always had this sort of thoughtful sound in her voice, constantly observing him. “Amateur job, though.”

“Ouch. I sewed it myself,” Wally frowned.

“Obviously,” she said. Wally resisted the urge to send her a sharp glare. The way she watched him, it felt like she’d be able to pick out the glare from behind his sunglasses without a single bit of trouble. “The Network has many affiliates, some of whom do good design work,” she told him after a beat. “They don’t take jobs from just anyone, but I’d be glad to recommend you.”

_“Don’t take that offer,”_  Roy told him, but Wally didn’t need the warning.

“Nah,” he shrugged. “I don’t want you to do me any favors.”

“But it’s such a small one,” Blacksmith pouted a bit before shrugging her evident disappointment off. “If you ever feel like changing your mind, the offer will still stand.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Wally said. “So. That Axel guy. What’s with him?”

“A recent addition to the Network,” she asked. “Why?”

“Well, I guess I was expecting that big metal guy to do the door-guarding,” Wally shrugged. 

“It would have been more trouble than it was worth, bringing Girder all the way out here and fitting him in through the doors,” Blacksmith explained. “Not to mention, he doesn’t exactly have the dexterity to handle the guest list. Axel, at least, can hold onto a sheet of paper.”

“Good point,” he said. “I guess good help is harder to find than I thought.”

“And sometimes, when you finally find it, you just don’t get any cooperation,” Blacksmith said. “Not going to lie, Kid. I  _want_  you working for me. Someone with talents like yours can go so much further than where the Rogues are taking you. Believe me when I say you’re headed for a dead end with them.”

“I’m not exactly an ambitious sort of person, Blacksmith,” Wally replied.

“I’m not saying you have to try and work your way up the ladder to the top of the foodchain, Kid,” she said to him. “But when you stop trying to move up, you  _sink_.”

“Wouldn’t know. Don’t swim,” Wally shrugged. “But I’ll keep it in mind. I’m just really comfortable living in this bubble.”

“You’re young,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “You’ll learn. Now, I have other matters to attend to before the meetings begin. Can I trust you to play nice with the rest of my guests?”

Wally glanced at the other people present, not a single one looking approachable, though he couldn’t tell if it was the age gap or the knowledge that he was absolutely out of his depth. As everyone had been saying, he was dealing with a category of criminals completely different from the Rogues, and while he dressed like he fit in, he really... didn’t. 

Wally fiddled with the waistband of his pants and glanced at Blacksmith. “Not really, no. Everyone here already seems to know each other.”

She lightly pushed him forward towards the closest group. “Go mingle. Everybody already knows you.”

“That sounds... ominous,” Wally muttered as Blacksmith sauntered off. 

The people Wally had been steered into looked at Wally, some of them managing to look dismissive and curious at the same time. 

“I take it you’re Blacksmith’s new pet project,” one of the men said. 

“You know what? I really wouldn’t know,” Wally said honestly. 

The man beside him made a face. “I liked the other one better,” he said. This one actually looked familiar. Wally was pretty sure he’d seen the man in the news somewhere, the CEO of some big company. It’d been responsible for some sort of chemical leak that resulted in some kind of crazy mutant uprising a while back. Yeah, Wally thought to himself. This was great company he was keeping these days. “What was her name again?”

“It was Peek-A-Boo,” the first man said. He looked Wally up and down with a critical eye. “Hmph. You’re all right. Dressed better than her, at least. You go by Kid, right? You’re a teleporter?”

“Something like that,” he said. It made sense, he realized, why she would invest so much interest in him. He wasn’t quite a teleporter, but someone like him would be valuable for an organization in which one of their main purposes was in the transport of illegal goods. “Not one of hers though.”

He didn’t like the condescendingly amused look that comment earned him. “She’ll have you if she wants you,” he said. So many layers of ick. “And, really, you wouldn’t last very long alone anyway.”

“I’m a  _Rogue_.”

And  _that_  earned him a small wave of laughter that made Wally’s face burn and his eyes narrow. 

“That’s okay,” one of them said. “You’re young.”

That  _again_. “What’s wrong with being a Rogue?” Wally complained. 

“They’re perfectly respectable. But the fact that you’re here means you belong on a different level.”

Wally resisted the incredible urge to stick up for his team. He already stood out enough, and while the others seemed to be humoring him well enough, he didn’t want to run the risk of losing the apparent... respect he had. They seemed to be treating him like a kid, something he wasn’t too fond of, but it was in the name anyway. Apparently, it meant his ‘mistakes’ were more easily overlooked. 

Instead, Wally smirked and shrugged. “I like it with them. It’s a bit of a morale booster on a bad day.”

“Ah, as satisfying as it may be to nurse your superiority complex, you’ll get a lot further if you let yourself graduate.”

_“Kid,”_  Roy said over the headset.  _“I can hear your teeth grinding.”_

Wally dropped his jaw slightly, allowing his muscles to loosen as he licked his front teeth. Before he could think of any sort of response, he heard Blacksmith’s voice above the soft din of conversation in the room. 

Wally’s head jerked up and stood at attention at the sound of a ringing clang that cut across the air. Almost immediately, every single conversation in the room went silent. Wally glanced around at the people around him, noticing that he wasn’t the only one who had been caught off-guard by the sudden sharp sound. Everyone, however, seemed to already know to look in Blacksmith’s direction. She was standing off in the center of the room, one hand raised in the air to draw everybody’s attention.

“If you would all redirect your attention to me,” she said with a smile, “I’d like to start the meeting. As promised, I’ll keep it short: we are introducing our ninth generation of Velocity. Some of you may remember Velocity 8 and it’s... interesting results. An independent contractor has come forward with a similar version of the same drug, this one more potent than the last. It’s gone through preliminary testing, the results of which can be seen on the wall behind me.” 

Wally looked past Blacksmith, turned to look over his shoulder at the projector on the far end of the room, and then back at the wall, where a slideshow compared the results of Velocity 8 and 9.

Users suffered massive dehydration, rapid aging, severe exhaustion, and instant intense addiction, among various other side effects... Velocity 8 sounded like it had been utter crap. Tachycardia, paranoia, seizures, strokes, heart attacks... Of course, Velocity 9 didn’t look so much better. Wally’s breath got caught on the way to his lungs for a moment as he recognized the stereochemistry. He could tell for certain now that Velocity 9 was his drug—or at least some sort of derivative of it. 

Alterations had been made to his drug. Bad ones. They had definitely been altered, but Wally just couldn’t understand why—the old formula hadn’t been perfect, but this was shoddy work. Then again, they hadn’t had  _him_  designing the drug. He did his best to memorize it on the spot. 

“The last Velocity gave people superspeed,” someone pointed out. Wally looked to see who had asked, but he couldn’t tell where the voice had come from. “How fast does this one go?” 

“That’s what we’re here to decide,” Blacksmith said. “The creator is working on several derivatives of another compound. With one compound, there are  _minimal_  side effects. Increased heart rate, respiration, paranoia, and energy are just a few of them, but they were mostly nonfatal. Of course, it’s a relatively low price to pay for the ability to clock up to two hundred meters per second.”

Slow. His dad slowed it down. And apparently some people shared the same sentiments.

“That’s no faster than the last generation,” the person beside him said. “What makes this worth  _anything_?”

“The second compound,” she said. “It’s different. The drug’s effects are isolated so that the superspeed doesn’t affect the human body, but the mental processes are given the same boost it would get otherwise.”

“So... basically, we’re selling super-Adderall,” Wally reiterated, ignoring the eyes this drew to him. 

“Super-Adderall with stronger effects and improved marketability.”

...So basically  _cocaine_.

“As in it’s more addictive,” someone said to confirm.

“Improved marketability,” she repeated. “So I’ve gone out and found anyone connected to the Network who might be interested in investing in Velocity 9. We’re taking it to a vote.”

That sounded surprisingly civilized. “Without taking some time to go over it first?” Wally asked under his breath, just loud enough to draw the attention of the people around him, who murmured in agreement until someone relayed the question back to Blacksmith. 

She took a moment to consider it before nodding. “Five more minutes to discuss it among yourselves,” she said. “After that, we have a public poll.”

Blacksmith stepped back away from the others and left the room.

“So why is it we can’t have both drugs?” somebody wondered. “I get that one of them is easier to sell as a recreational drug, the other gives you superspeed—”

“At the cost of being  _really_  fatal,” Wally pointed out. “And not that fast either.”

Before waiting for a response, he marched over to the projector and fumbled around with the stand until he found the laptop it was connected to.

“What are you doing?”

“Research,” Wally answered, flipping open the monitor. “If they made this dumb slideshow for us to watch, well, they want us to know more about the product right? I want to know what I’m getting myself into before I pay for it.”

“That’s not ours to go through.”

“Pfft. Rules,” he scoffed. Wally skimmed through documents, reading faster than most of the people standing over his shoulder could keep up. He didn’t care so much for the results of the experimentation, scanning for names or locations. With any luck, he could find out something about his father. Or those speedsters he’d been working with. 

“Get anything?” someone asked.

“As long as the functional groups remain the same, the drugs will have similar effects, but the thing is that those  _slight_  changes to the chemical formula made a huge difference in here. You end up with completely different effects. Making two of them is probably just asking for some mix-up, in which case would be a bad thing,” Wally told them. It was total bullshit, but he figured no one would risk calling him out on it. He wasn’t exactly lying either, but there was really no reason you couldn’t just create both drugs. They were similar enough in structure—it would take a bit of careful manipulation, but once the process was down, it would be easy to translate one drug into another.

_“You can tell just from a glance?”_  Roy asked in his ear. The small group behind him murmured, the same question in mind.

“The reason I am where I am is because I’m a genius,” Wally said absentmindedly. “Mortality rate was roughly one out of hundred and fifty, it seems...”

“Still unacceptably high,” someone said. “I heard that just a few deaths from Velocity 8 brought the Justice League in a matter of days following the initial sales.”

Wally really was between a rock and a hard place, having to choose either a highly addictive drug that was essentially the newest speed on the streets or an often-fatal drug that would give its user superspeed. When push came to shove, though, he’d rather it be the mostly debilitating recreational drug than the one that gave people superpowers. It seemed easier to deal with. And less likely to directly challenge or, worse, hurt Uncle Barry.

“The drugs may have similar functions, but the way they’d be used is completely different,” Wally affirmed. “On one hand, we could have a drug. Basically, the first of a new drug ring. You’ll make a profit. The income would probably last longer. On the other hand, you could have a drug that’ll boost your ability to run fast. It’ll let you fight off the Justice League if you need to defend yourself.” He looked over his shoulder to watch the other people’s reactions. Not many of them looked too keen on the idea. It was to be expected, after all; they were white collar criminals, sitting at the top of their companies and not too eager to get their own hands dirty. 

“Yeah, no,” a man off to the side snorted. “The Flash can break the sound barrier. This is—what did Blacksmith say? Two hundred meters per second? You wouldn’t last a heartbeat against that guy. Not worth it.”

“So, what, are we all for voting on the recreational one?” Wally said. 

“Well, if no one’s going to say it, I am. I have to deal with the Flash interrupting on my operation all the time and, frankly, it gets tiring. I’m for the superspeed drug,” a wide set man muttered. 

“You’re local? Who’re  _you_?” Wally asked.

“This is Jack Monteleone,” one of the men introduced. He stood behind Monteleone, his thick arms crossed over his barrel chest. He was probably a bodyguard of some sort. Monteleone didn’t appear to have as many cohorts surrounding him as the rest of the crowd, but he carried himself with an air of self-importance. Wally couldn’t really talk, anyway. He was one of the few people here on his own. 

“Of course, we wouldn’t expect you to know who I am, you being fresh from out of nowhere and all.” 

Wally didn’t  _think_  his age had been that noticeable, especially with his mask and hat obscuring so many of his facial features, and he didn’t  _think_  he had much of a small-town accent. The man was probably referring to the fact that, even though most people didn’t know who he exactly was, where he had come from, or what was so special about him exactly, they did know he had essentially appeared in Central from out of nowhere—which basically meant he came from somewhere far away. Still, he’d been here for a few months now and felt he deserved to be given at least some acknowledgement as a local. 

_“Apparently known better as the Candyman. Aka, you’re talking to Central’s drug kingpin. He’s a bit low on the totem pole of national and international crime, but you should probably exercise a bit of caution dealing with him anyway,”_  Roy told him after a beat, presumably looking the name up in whatever database he had access to. The League’s, maybe. 

“It’s Sweet Tooth, right?” Wally asked flatly. Roy cleared his throat loudly in Wally’s earpiece, not quite a laugh, but definitely not really clearing his throat either. 

“Candyman,” Monteleone said snappishly. “And you’d do good to remember that.”

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” Wally said, all interest lost with the man’s attempted weight-throwing. He wasn’t interested in dick measuring contests or territorial disputes. The Rogues always handled the people stuff. He turned his attention back to the screen. “Now if you’ll excuse me...”

His eyes stopped on the list of test subjects, recognizing one of the names. O’Hannegan. The man had disappeared after someone he had worked for had realized there was some kind of connection between him and Red Arrow and Aquarius. That man... he probably never realized who ‘Arsenal’ had been until it was too late. He skipped further down the list at a group labeled the Blue Trinity.  _Gregor Gregorovich. Boleslaw Uminski. Christina Alexandrova._  He recognized part of the names. It was—

A hand rested itself on his arm.

“Find something interesting?” 

Wally closed his eyes at the sound of the heavy Russian accent. 

_Just. His. Luck_.

He jerked his elbow back, prepared to push the Russian off his arm—a man, so it was either Gregorovich or Uminski, he couldn’t quite remember from that day in his home. Before he could hit the other man though, another hand caught the elbow. 

“ _Let’s not make a scene_ ,” he said, speaking in a low voice next to Wally’s ear. 

Wally felt his face go red as he was marched away. His plans hadn’t gotten completely derailed, but it didn’t mean he enjoyed everyone watching him get led away like, well, like a crook. No one looked too concerned, though there were a handful of curious looks. As he looked around, he wondered where Blacksmith’s security was, and why they hadn’t stepped in sooner, when he had gotten on the computer in the first place. With Blacksmith and Magenta gone, one would’ve thought Axel would’ve been the next up to keep an eye on things, but it seemed he had gone off and left as well.

Still, he wondered if it had just been a mistake. Maybe even if Axel was present, he still wouldn’t have done anything. Not when Wally was being escorted away by someone else’s security. Jurisdiction issues could get messy.

Well. It wasn’t that bad. Things weren’t going according to plan any more, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret these turn of events. He’d thought that the time had done something to dull his anger, but he could practically feel his blood beginning to heat up and an unpleasantly familiar feeling of anger beginning to reform. So much for laying low. All he could think about was hurting them. He wanted a  _fight_.

A little voice in his head, though, kept him grounded—made him wonder if maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

_“Kid, what’s going on?”_  Roy demanded in his ear, reminding him once again that he had a  _job_  to do. He felt a little bad for Roy and Kaldur, sitting back and listening in when they were definitely the type of people who preferred to be closer to the fray.

“Three on one...?” Wally asked out loud in a mocking tone so Roy could tell what was going on. One of the Russians walked in front of him, and Alexandrova and the second man flanked him. Normally, being surrounded by criminals didn’t really bother him, seeing as he worked with the Rogues and all. Still, the knowledge that these people could probably make him sweat in a race didn’t help a single bit. “You sure you can handle me? I mean, I’m not sure you want to do this. It’ll be really embarrassing when I knock you all on your asses. Of course, I guess that’s why you want to do this in private, huh?”

_“Are you just going along with—Kid, are you an idiot?”_  Roy asked. Wally bristled a little at that. He was a  _genius_. This was just a calculated risk.  _“Do you even know who they are or where they’re taking you? Don’t go anywhere with them. You stop it, do you hear me?”_

“As I recall, our other encounter ended in our favor, not yours. Didn’t we make you  _cry_?” she sneered.

He was going to hit her first. He was definitely going to hit her first. Wally just hoped the grinding of his teeth was enough to drown out the bit of conversation Roy could hear, but he really shouldn’t have bothered hoping.

_“You... know these guys?”_  Roy asked, curious to hear more but tactful enough not to approach the question directly.

“Shut up,” Wally said as they walked into a room and closed the door behind them. There was enough space to run in, but what advantages he had, they did too, and they outnumbered him as well. 

“Sore spot?” the woman asked. Alexandrova. Christina Alexandrova. She owed him a damn lamp.

“I spent hours digging through rubble, and you were still only able to beat me by hitting me from behind. What handicap do you want now? I can blindfold myself if you need me to.”

“Oh,  _speaking_  of rubble,” Alexandrova asked mockingly, “how’s your mother? Did you ever find her?” 

Wally knew instinctively getting into a fight was a bad idea. He was outnumbered. He was technically in the wrong, with the Blue Trinity pulling him to the side after he got caught going through their information. And, not to mention, this situation really wasn’t exactly going according to plan. Still, Wally felt he really couldn’t be blamed for throwing the first punch. It was a tense situation, and considering the way she kept on goading him, she was practically  _asking_  for it.

Not that he wasted time mulling this over, yanking his elbow free of the hand so he could shove it into her face with all the speed he could muster. He didn’t have a running start, but all the strength and speed of the blow was enough to drop the woman like a rock. 

The other two men reacted immediately, but Wally was already in motion, spinning around on his heel to go after the second Russian man. Wally closed his fist and hammered it against the side of the other man’s face. Taking advantage of the momentary lapse he caused, he darted straight forward, putting some distance between him and both the men.

“I’m faster than you,” Wally reminded them, unable to resist turning his head over his shoulder to snark. And then he realized he hadn’t quite outrun them, both of them still on his tail.

“Not any more,” the older of the two said. He was right behind Wally. 

Wally made a sharp turn, sprinting off to the side, and nearly ran himself straight into the wall. The palms of Wally’s hands slammed against the plaster, protecting his face through sheer luck with a heavy, echoing thud. Wally wondered if the people outside could hear the fight, but the rooms were far and separate from the main hall. The first Russian man, who had been one step behind him, avoided this and continued after Wally, doggedly chasing him step after step as Wally ran a tangled path around the room. 

“...Nope! Still faster!” Wally loudly informed the Russians over his shoulder, though he felt his heart begin to pound nervously at the fact that running in a smaller area forced them all to constantly change directions, nullifying any speed advantage he might’ve had on them. On top of that, they were definitely faster than when he’d first met them.  _Almost_  as fast as him, and this was two-on-one. Three, if that was Alexandrova getting back up.

He didn’t quite give her a chance, running forward and kicking her back down as he passed. Wally never really struck a woman out of maliciousness before, but to be fair, Wally believed in gender equality, and in the spirit of tit for tat:  _they started it_.

Wally jumped over a chair and slid under a table, but his hands scrambled for purchase against the dull brown tiles as a hand grabbed him by the ankle and dragged him back. He retaliated, rolling over on his side, and used the man’s grip on his leg as leverage to kick him flat in the face, but the momentary setback was all the other Russian man needed to catch up.

Wally slipped out of the grasp and crawled under the table again, gaining a few more precious inches of distance between him and them. He circled the room a second and a third time, narrowly dodging sudden tackles and ducking wild arms. They were constantly just inches behind him. His drug, in addition to what natural enhancements they had already had, had given them enough speed to keep up with him, though not enough to catch up.

But he was limited on time. Every attempt to make for the door resulted in him being cut off and forced to quickly change directions, not only ruining his escape but often whittling down his momentum and forcing him to slow down. It was really only a matter of time before he wore himself out and they caught him. 

_“Kid,”_  he heard Roy speaking over the rush of air passing his ears. “ _If you need to get out of this situation, now would be a great moment to use what I gave you._ ”

The exploding arrowhead. Yeah, Wally hadn’t forgotten about it. In fact, it was a bit of a distraction, how aware he was of the fact that if he ran into something, he had seconds to get rid of it before it detonated. The thought of letting the explosion hit the trio was tempting, but when it came down to it, Wally wasn’t  _that_  angry. It just wasn’t in him. He doubted he had the guts to kill someone, even in hot blood. 

No, he didn’t want to maim them. Not too badly. Not really. Okay, he was little iffy on that. 

More importantly, he wasn’t  _quite_  looking to escape them either. A few cycles around the room gave him enough time to re-evaluate his thoughts. His plans didn’t completely hinge on whether he was caught or not. This was a just a small setback, if even that. It didn’t look like he was getting the back-up from the Network like he had thought he would, but the night wasn’t over yet. 

In which case, it was best to get this over with.

Wally made one last circle around the room, saw Alexandrova pushing herself shakily back off the floor and couldn’t resist one last jab. He charged at her, fully intending on using her as something of a springboard to jump off of, but she got up faster than he expected. Instead Wally felt one of his feet impact against her ribs. She went back down, as he had planned, but Wally tumbled to the ground with a clumsy roll that ended with him bumping slightly into the wall at the end of the room. His ankle flared in pain from the impact, apparently hyperextended from the accidental kick, but it seemed to be a mild sprain at least.

Not bad, not bad, he could recover—

He jumped up to his feet, looked up, and saw one of the men barreling straight towards him, the look of surprise almost mirroring Wally’s own. With no time to dive out of the way, Wally raised his arms protectively, covering both his face and the breast pocket of his waistcoat that contained the exploding arrowhead, and just prayed.

The speedster’s whole body slammed into Wally, and the entire world seemed to stagger for a moment as his head struck the back of the wall and his wrist was mashed painfully into his own forearm. He was also pretty sure he hit himself in the face, and the world rocked back and forth. His shoulders felt borderline dislocated and his elbows had jarred on impact, but the Russian who had slammed into those elbows fell backwards with a heavy groan, no doubt regretting the run more than Wally did.

Wally had about two seconds to celebrate his inadvertent victory and recover before the last of the speedsters was in his face, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and lifting him up enough to keep his feet from gaining any purchase. Wally flailed half-heartedly, kicking his feet out at the man and beating at his arms until the Russian pulled him forward and struck him against the wall a second time, at which point Wally decided it was in his best interest to just stop moving.

“...Ow,” he said belatedly, realizing that everything was actually starting to hurt now. 

“Boleslaw,” the man said, looking over his shoulder. His downed partner responded in Russian, slow and breathless, and rolled onto his side, gingerly getting up to his feet with the speed of a slug. It seemed enough to reassure Wally’s captor, whom by default was Gregorovich, that Boleslaw was all right. Winded and bruised, but all right. Gregorovich turned his direction back to Wally. “You’ve made things very difficult for us, brat,” he said, his accent thick but his words carefully and clearly enunciated.

_“Kid, what’s your status?”_  Roy asked over the earpiece.  _“I already got Kaldur in position nearby. He can get in and help pull you out if you need us to, just say the word.”_

They didn’t really set any safe word beforehand. Wally paused for a minute, taking a moment to consider how he would respond. “Well,” he said finally, “I’m not the type to give up so easily. Unlike you guys, I don’t need anyone to back me up. I fight my own battles, and I fight hard.” If it took Wally a little longer than it should’ve to respond, Gregorovich didn’t say anything about it, probably attributing it to being smashed against the wall. “So what do you want?”

“What  _we_  want?” Gregorovich repeated with his heavy Russian accent. “ _We_  are here to make profits. You, here, makes far less sense.”

“ _Tell them…_ ” Roy paused. “ _Tell them you’re a buyer._

Well, he was there posing as a buyer, even if that had nothing to do with what Wally wanted. “I’m here to make a buy,” Wally shrugged. “Why else?”

The grip around the front of his shirt tightened with his response. “You? Try and buy the rights to V9? We know V9 wasn’t even the best of your drugs. What we got, it was just your practice runs. We know you can make a better one, no problem.”

_“...Kid?”_  Wally found he didn’t really like the uncertainty in Roy’s voice. The sudden shock. The hint of accusation.  _“You made V9?”_

“I... I’m not...” Wally started, but he squeezed his eyes shut, getting his thoughts together, and ignored Roy. There were more important things than... clearing his “good” name. Besides, they really should’ve known there was  _some_  kind of connection between him and the drug, considering the timing of both their appearances. Hunter’s team had put that together quickly enough. “I didn’t lie. I’m here to buy V9, and when I get it, I’ll make sure it never hits the streets.”

Gregorovich grinned. “Ambitious  _and_  soft. Persuading you to give us the final formula, that will be difficult, I suspect,” he said.

“...Difficult? Try  _impossible_ ,” Wally snarled. “I’d  _never_  give it to you.”

“Not of your own accord,” he replied. “Your daddy isn’t here to help you this time.”

Wally jammed a lockpick into one of the hands that held him up, pinning him against the wall, and almost immediately, the man howled and dropped him to the ground. Wally gritted his teeth in pain but ignored his throbbing ankle in order to pressed his advantage, tackling him to the ground and punching the other man repeatedly in the face and chest. 

“He only helps himself,” Wally growled as Boleslaw Uminski gathered enough of his wits to grab Wally and pull him off Gregorovich. “ _Get off_! You can’t do this. I’m not—I’m not  _alone_  anymore.”

“Oh, yes, we heard,” Gregorovich sneered, though the mocking look didn’t quite meet his eyes, which were practically ablaze with anger. Probably had something to do with the blood he was staunching with his other hand. “The  _Rogues_. Well. I don’t see any of them around. How long do you think it’ll be before they notice you are missing? How much do you think they’ll actually care?”

His mind flashed back to Piper, whose absence stretched for days before any of the other Rogues bothered to look for him, whom they all gave up without a fight.

“It’s not just the Rogues,” Wally said, grasping at straws. “I’ve got another pair of eyes on me.”

“Who?” Gregorovich said, looking caught somewhere between amused and curious

_“...Kid, I know you might be at the end of your rope, but you can_ not _tell them about—”_

“Blacksmith.”

_“...us. What?”_

“Blacksmith?” Gregorovich repeated after him, finally looking a little less reassured. It was a satisfying change of expression, only slightly ruined by Roy’s constant exposition. 

_“That is... also not a good idea_ ,” Roy added finally.

“Yeah, Blacksmith. I’m her guest,” Wally told Gregorovich. 

“Everyone here is her guest,” he replied, but there was definitely a note of caution in his voice now.

“I’m her  _special_  guest. You see, maybe you haven’t heard but rumors have it that she’s interested in having me join her crew,” Wally said.

“It’s true, you know,” Blacksmith’s voice practically slid into the room with its even tone and soft echo. “That’s one of  _my_  boys you’re manhandling.” 

Almost immediately, Wally was released from Uminski’s hold, and both he and Gregorovich backed off to face Amunet. 

“You have my apologies, Amunet,” Gregorovich said to her in monotone. “I didn’t think you would associate yourself with with his brand of criminality.”

“Oh, you know what they say about diamonds in the rough,” she said dismissively. “Anyway, the vote’s been cast and the decision made: our benefactors are more interested in Velocity 9 as a recreational drug. We’ve set the date and location of the next meet.”

“Without me?” Wally asked. 

“I felt if you were foolish enough to try and slip into someone else’s laptop in  _full view_  of a large crowd and think you could get away with it without punishment, you deserved to be kicked around just a tiny bit,” Blacksmith shrugged. She looked Wally up and down, his clothes disheveled and splattered with someone else’s blood, and nodded. “The fact that you’re still in one piece is just icing on the cake,” she said, possibly ignoring the fact that Wally was going to have several bumps and bruises by the end of the day. She turned to the Uminski and Gregorovich, who were pulling Alexandrova back up on her feet and supporting her weight. “Now, if I may speak to the Kid alone...”

All three of them shot Wally an angry glare before nodding to Blacksmith and leaving. 

“I have to admit, I’m really impressed,” she said. “Taking on three speedsters.”

“They’re slower than me,” Wally shrugged. He shifted his weight to his left leg, alleviating the burden on his sprained ankle. And he hadn’t gotten out of the scuffle free either. Careless mistake.

“It still takes talent,” Blacksmith said. “So. About what you said, working for me.  _How_  did you know the reason I was interested in you?” she asked. 

“Aside from the fact that you came in and said it was true? I didn’t know. I guessed. Someone out there mentioned that you used to have a teleporter on your team and called me your new ‘pet project’. I figured it made sense that you wanted someone with a similar skillset,” he shrugged. “I mean, you  _do_  run smuggling operations here and there, right?”

“Smart boy,” Blacksmith nodded appreciatively. She pulled a small pocketbook from... Wally really couldn’t tell where in that outfit, but she scribbled a few notes in it and ripped the perforated page out. “And excellent timing too. There’s a task that may require your expertise in retrieval. I’ll keep you informed once I find more information.”

“W... wait, what?” Wally said. 

“You weren’t trying to take  _advantage_  of my refuge, were you?” she asked innocently, tilting her head a bit with only the slightest signs of mocking disapproval. 

“No, I...”

“Because it would be just a  _shame_  if I had to withdraw all the special privileges I gave you as a potential candidate for my team,” she said thoughtfully. “The invitation you had to these meetings were conditional.”

“I didn’t mean I  _wouldn’t_  work with you,” Wally said quickly. 

“Oh, good,” she said. “It would’ve been awkward, calling the Blue Trinity back to clear things up and let them know you weren’t mine after all. I mean, I can’t just extend my organization’s protection to just anyone. I hope you understand.” 

“It makes sense,” he nodded, not caring if he looked overeager with the unsteady jerking of his head. 

“I understand you aren’t interested in a long-term job. So my protection lasts until you leave,” she said and she held up two cards. “This one is the invitation with the time and place of the next meeting. There was a thirty thousand dollar buy-in for those interested in having a look-see and opportunity to buy the final product, but seeing as I have you on retainer, I think I can waive this fee. And this card is my personal number. Call me if you have any questions. I’ll call you if I have any job propositions.”

“I ...Yeah. Okay,” he said awkwardly as she fixed his collar and slipped two sheets of paper in his shirt pocket. Over his headset, he could almost catch the sound of a frustrated groan, and Wally wondered just how badly he’d been played.

“Now, go see Axel and get him to find you something to wash the blood off,” she said. “I liked you because you dressed sharp. Don’t spoil it.”

It was one order Wally didn’t mind following. He left her presence quickly, doing his best not to stumble around awkwardly. Hitting the wall hadn’t left him as steady as he would’ve liked, and it hadn’t done much for his ankle either. Walking it off, he glanced around, eyes searching for the blond in the room and spotting him at the other side. People glanced at Wally as he passed, some of them watching longer than others, and all of them giving him a slightly respectful look as he had emerged from the room with a mild limp and someone else’s blood on his shirt.

“Hey.” 

Axel turned around to see who it was who addressed him, only to find wet red hands smearing the front of his shirt. “ _Hey_!” he protested angrily, trying in vain to wipe the blood off the material. 

“Believe me, I’m doing you a favor. You need to take that shirt out back and burn it,” Wally said and Axel glared at him, no longer as friendly as he was during their first encounter. 

“Who the hell do you think you are?” he demanded. 

“Your new teammate,” Wally answered. “And I felt, as your new teammate, it was my duty to stop you from ever wearing that ever again. Yellow and blue is too much color for you. Anyway, Blacksmith told me to go to you before I leave. Can’t walk out of here covered in blood.”

Axel glared at him and nodded towards the hallway he had entered the building from. “There’s a working water fountain near the front where you came in,” he said irritably, and when Wally didn’t move Axel glared at him. “What, you think I’m going to do it for you? Do it yourself, I’m not a washing machine.”

“Fine, fine,” Wally grinned as he backed off and started to leave. “See you later, Axel. And change your shirt! It looks  _disgusting_.”

He got a middle finger for his advice. Wally really didn’t mind. He’d gotten what he needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another update to celebrate a weird time in my life. Been kinda-sorta homeless since a year ago yesterday. It's been strange but okay.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can thanks [distressed-kitty](http://distressed-kitty.tumblr.com) for this chapter.

_“What are you doing?”_  Roy asked as Wally headed out the door. 

“I’m getting the hell out of here,” Wally muttered to him under his breath as he lightly jogged at a disjointed pace down the corridor through the hallway and out of his building. His ankle still throbbed, and he wondered how long it would take to recover. He didn’t know how bad it was, and he hadn’t exactly tested out his accelerated healing enough to know it himself. It could take a few hours, or it could take a few days.

 _“You can’t just leave in the middle of a mission!”_  Roy said.  _“Get back in there and find—”_

“Find what?” Wally said, stepping out of the doorway and sprinting across the street. He didn’t stop until he was a comfortable distance away from the Network’s temporary meeting place. “Plan A’s a bust. I can’t follow those guys back to their boss, they’d see me way too easily. They’re speedsters too, and they’re almost as fast as I am, which means it’s a lot harder to use my own speed to stay out of sight.”

_“So you’re giving up?”_

“I’m changing my approach.”

 _“You’re_ walking away _,”_  Roy said. 

“No, I’m... jogging,” Wally said. “At a leisurely pace.” And maybe the slightest limp in his step.

Roy was silent for a few moments before he spoke up again.  _“You hurt?”_

“Achy,” Wally said, taking a moment to stretch the kinks out of his neck. “I got bounced around a little. How’d you know?”

_“Aquarius says look to the left.”_

Wally did, but he didn’t see anyone down the street. Even if he had seen anyone, he probably would’ve done his best to avoid being seen by them anyway, considering the bits of blood on his clothing. “I don’t see anyone.”

“Look up. On the roof of Perlman’s Jewelry Exchange.”

“There are a lot of jewelry stores in Central,” Wally said, recalling Mirror Master’s tale of how he had robbed the store only two weeks earlier. “You’d think after the billionth time they’re robbed, they’d just pick up and leave. Ah. Hey there, Aquarius. Are you listening in on this?”

The Atlantean was leaning over the edge of the rooftop. 

“He is,” Roy said.

“Good thing I didn’t say anything I didn’t regret,” Wally grinned. “Okay, Aquawife, I’m coming, so back up.”

Kaldur might’ve nodded, but it was hard to tell, considering the slowly dimming sunset and the distance between them, but his head disappeared behind the edge as he backed away from the edge of the roof. Wally took a few steps back himself, and then he ran at the wall, the soles of his shoes digging into the brick and lifting him several feet up.

He wasn’t quite sure how far up he had gotten before his feet slipped up and he lost his grip on the wall.

“Ohshi—”

All the air in his lungs escaped him as he landed on his back. He wasn’t sure whether to be glad he hadn’t made it very far up the wall. On one hand, too far up and he could’ve badly hurt himself. On the other hand, he  _hadn’t made it very far up the wall_. 

 _“Kid?”_  he heard the faint sound of Kaldur’s voice.

“Don’t look,” he wheezed with what little air he had managed to retrieve already. He blinked the dim spots from his eyes. “That was embarrassing.”

Wally hid his face behind his hands as Kaldur’s face inevitably reappeared over the edge.

 _“You fell?”_  Roy asked. 

“Aquawife say that?” Wally asked blearily. “Because if he did, he’s lying. I just felt like laying here on the sidewalk for a bit.”

 _“What’s wrong? If you need help—”_  Roy said. 

“Then I’d ask for it,” Wally cut him off, quickly sitting up—a little too quickly, maybe—and he climbed back up on his feet, this time a little slower. He took a few steps back again, a little more gingerly this time, and ran at the wall a second time.

In retrospect, he was probably a little too careful, approaching the wall at a slower speed, because he didn’t get up nearly as far as last time, lasting only two footsteps up the wall before falling back down. The second fall was marginally more graceful than the first, but it wasn’t any easier on his butt.

“I shouldn’t be having trouble getting up,” Wally said. “I’m only—I’m not even twenty. I’m too young for this.”

Like Wally, the joke seemed to fall flat.  _“What’s going on?”_  Roy asked,

“Nothing,” he muttered. “My legs just feel like jelly right now. Whatever. I’m just going to—”

A glowing, vibrant blue rope fell from above, and Wally looked up to see that Kaldur was holding onto the other end, waiting for him to grab onto the knot at the end. 

“—go. Or not,” Wally finished. After only a moment of hesitation, he jumped up a bit, both arms raised, to catch the knot at the end of the rope and start climbing up. However, the moment he grabbed onto it, the cold knot in his hands shifted in his grip, and blue tendrils wrapped around Wally’s hands, and then wrists, and then entire forearms. “What? Red! What is this? What—?”

The rope swung him a bit from side to side before Wally was suddenly jerked straight up into the air, practically dragged up to the roof where Kaldur awaited him. The cool, water cables around his arms became loose, drooping and losing color until they had completely changed back into clear water and withdrew back within Kaldur’s waterbearers. 

“What the heck did you wrap me up like that for?” Wally demanded, his arms still chilly where the cool rope had spread across his arms, almost like a blanket of cold.

“In my experience, it’s more comfortable to be tied with more support for the arms and the body. It covered more surface area,” Kaldur said, in a voice that sounded carefully even. 

“I could’ve pulled myself up on the rope.”

“You have greater strength in your legs than your arms,” he replied logically. “And upon seeing as the strength in your own legs is under suspect, I felt it was more prudent to give you a boost myself.”

Wally frowned, unsure if what Kaldur said had been an observation or a backhanded insult. “... _Hey_.”

“Greetings,” Kaldur replied. “As good it is to see you in one piece, I must ask: are you injured?”

“Just a little bumped up,” he shrugged. His sprain was probably mild, and it didn’t feel safe to divulge any weakness either, even if it was to his own ‘allies’. Wally followed Kaldur’s gaze down to his own shirt, splashed with a dull red blood, Wally shrugged and looked away. “Not my blood. From my lockpicks. I caught a guy’s hand on it.”

“Did you get his name?” Kaldur asked him. 

Wally was tempted to tell them the truth. Really. But giving them information on the Blue Trinity...? It made him anxious. It hit him, only just now, that the Blue Trinity knew his name. What if Roy and Kaldur were successful in getting to them? Would they tell them who the Kid was? Wally didn’t want to leave that up to chance. 

“No idea,” he lied, but Roy’s answer was immediate. 

 _“Don’t lie to me,”_  he said, so quickly Wally wondered if Roy had expected him to say that, for him to brush him and Kaldur off.  _“We heard it. You_  knew  _them_.”

“Well, if you’re so sure, then why’d you guys ask?”

 _“I was hoping you’d tell the_  truth _,”_  Roy told him.  _“Wanted to give you a chance first.”_

“Well, I  _did_  tell you the truth,” Wally lied again. “I’ve met them at one point, yeah. But it’s not as if I can pick them out of a lineup. I’ve never seen their faces. I’ve never heard their names. Well... I think the woman is maybe a Christie or Christina or Christa. And they’re Russian or something... foreign-sounding. I think they go by the Blue Trinity, but I’m not sure. The point is, I’ve only ran into them once before this, and it’s not as if I can say I learned much from either encounter.”

 _“And that wasn’t important enough to at least bring up?”_  Roy said. 

“How do you know them?” Kaldur asked, a good deal calmer than his partner, and Wally was suddenly glad for that cooler company, for the fact that Roy had, by chance, sent Kaldur rather than come here himself. 

Still, Roy’s irritation with him didn’t help Wally’s own rapidly rising bad temper. 

“Look, if I don’t say anything when I should have, my bad. If I just don’t feel like saying something?  _Too bad_ , because I don’t have to say anything I don’t want to. I don’t  _work for_  you guys, and I don’t  _answer_  to you guys either.”

 _“This isn’t about who’s in charge, Kid,”_  Roy said.  _“We need to know how you’re connected to this Blue Trinity. You can’t just keep this kind of stuff from us. You nearly ruined the mission because you don’t seem to know how to work with a team.”_

“You’re calling us a team?” Wally laughed humorlessly. There was a nervous sort of energy welling up in his chest begging to be released. “We’re not a  _team_. I don’t know why I wanted to try working with you in the first place! You just sit on your asses telling me what to do. Your job is to just record this. I’m the one getting you the access to the Network. I’m the one doing the legwork.  _I’m_  the one surrounded by  _multimillionaire bad guys_  and all their hench-people! I can’t even say I’m better off alone, I  _am_  alone. I don’t know why I even  _bother_  with you people.”

Leaving them behind wouldn’t be the right thing to do. He didn’t like the idea of being truly, completely alone among the Network, without even the presence of a voice whispering advice and questions in his ear. But he wasn’t comfortable with the thought of working with them any longer. Not after finally confirming his father’s involvement with the drug. 

He needed to stop his father. He needed Roy and Kaldur to stop the trade of V9 so he wouldn’t be implicated in working for the good guys. But he couldn’t have them arresting his father. Could he? They’d ID him, and everyone would know Wally West’s father was a criminal. People would look at him too, and realize something had gone wrong with the family since the divorce. They could look at his and his father’s lives, pick them apart, and maybe even realize the truth of the Kid’s identity. There’d been too many close calls already.

Even worse, Rudy could just save the authorities the trouble of investigating his family and just tell everyone that Wally was a metahuman and a thief. Maybe just to spite him. Maybe it would get Rudy out of some jail time. Maybe... enlisting Roy and Kaldur’s help hadn’t been such a good idea, and he had to consider the possibility that, despite everything that happened, he still didn’t  _want_  to see his father arrested. 

Wally started to circle the roof, preparing enough momentum to speed up and jump onto the next rooftop and the next until he reached a suitably low one where he could safely land on solid ground, but Kaldur’s hand shot out, managing to grasp around Wally’s wrist. It was a weak grip, but apparently enough to stop Wally in his tracks. Somewhere behind the whirling thoughts, he noticed his hands had been shaking and wondered just how long they’d been doing that. 

“You bother because, despite everything you’ve done and all the habits you’ve formed, there is still a part of you that would rather do the right thing,” Kaldur said. “You proved this when you alone initiated this operation, infiltrating an organization of  _criminal bodies_  by yourself without any coercion or guidance. You recruited  _us_  to help you through your first real mission. You faced those speedsters by yourself without any hesitation.” 

“What do you know?” Wally asked a little bitterly. 

“I know you were shaken by their appearance. I know they hurt you and your family as some point, probably not too long ago,” Kaldur said, lifting Wally’s hands up between them, though most of the tremors had already begun to disappear. “I know, it being your first mission, it’s likely to have dawned on you by now, the fact that this line of work can get you  _killed_.”

“Well, if it hadn’t already, this cleared that right up for me, thanks,” he muttered under his breath, tugging his wrist lightly from Kaldur’s hand.

“And I know that you are capable of leaving at any time you wish,” Kaldur said, letting him go. “But you don’t, because despite the danger, you’re still satisfied with the good that you’re doing. It’s the reason Roy and I agreed to work with you. I was posted here to keep an eye on you. To intervene if you required my assistance. It’s understandable to feel a little unnerved, but even though you were surrounded and outnumbered by the three speedsters, you were not alone. You  _are_  not alone,” Kaldur told him, crossing his arms in front of his chest and not trying to make contact with Wally again. Wally knew the Atlantean was just trying to show some courtesy for Wally’s personal space, but it was hard to appreciate it. Kaldur was treating him like a feral animal with its hackles raised. Maybe for good reason, but he still didn’t like it. “And as your companion, as temporary as it is, I do not recommend jumping off the edge of this rooftop until you are steadier on your legs.”

Wally made a face but conceded to the point, giving up on standing. He sat down hard on the concrete, not caring what dirt, dust, or scum was left on the rooftop. It was about time he retired this suit and tossed it out for a clean, unstained one. Maybe work on getting a new outfit entirely.

“My leg hurts,” Wally said simply as an explanation, and Kaldur nodded, probably already knowing that too.

Without another word, Kaldur sat down with him, kneeling down into a cross-legged position with more grace than Wally had in him. Something about it reminded Wally of Hunter, and it made him wonder if it was something one had picked up from the other, to create an illusion of ease and equality by maintaining the same eye level as the other person.

“Those speedsters... you know them?” Kaldur tried again after giving Wally a few moments to gather his composure. He already knew the answer of course. Wally knew this was just his way of gently leading into the conversation, to get the answers he really wanted.

“They found me,” Wally said. “I didn’t know they even existed until I came home one day and they broke in.”

 _“Why?”_  Roy asked, finally speaking up again, now that Kaldur had finally managed to calm him down.

Wally looked at Kaldur and shrugged. “I think you know why, Red,” he said. “They broke in. We fought. They left with some of my work on the superspeed formula.”

 _“You’re not telling us everything,”_  Roy said.

“What, you want all the details about  _how_  they tracked me down? How I never saw it coming and got my ass handed to me in my own home?” Wally asked, his voice harsh to his own ears, but he immediately toned himself down for casual indifference. Not that it mattered. He was pretty sure Kaldur and Roy could see through it in an instant, and Roy wasn’t even there. “Sorry,” he said unapologetically. “I don’t think my ego could handle it.” 

He paused, his middle and index finger rhythmically tapping against and scraping down the rough cement as he thought. He hadn’t done too badly the last time he’d seen them. He’d might’ve been fighting a losing battle, but things hadn’t gone completely out of his favor until his father got him from behind. 

“...This round went a lot better for me,” he commented thoughtfully.

 _“The _mission_  could’ve gone better if you hadn’t brought all that attention on yourself,”_ Roy chided, though his tone of voice was more restrained than usual, careful not to tick Wally off. He  _had_  been a bit moody lately, but he had Hunter and Barry and his mom and these two jerks to thank for that.

Wally scoffed. “It  _might’ve_  gone better,” he corrected. “But all things considered, I don’t think it went too badly. Those speedsters showing up derailed things a bit. I wanted  _Axel’s_  attention, not theirs. I guess it doesn’t matter, though. I got what I needed from him in the end anyway.” 

“I don’t understand. What did you do?” Kaldur asked.

Wally raised his arm level to his chest and tugged his sleeve down past his wrist, far enough that a corner of white paper peeked out from inside his sleeve. “I realized our original plan wasn’t going to work. There’s no drug trail to follow, no way to follow the goons selling it without being spotted myself. And then I realized Axel was in possession of a certain list. This,” Wally said, brandishing the guest list with a dramatic flourish that only Kaldur was there to appreciate, “is Plan B.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meant to actually post the next few chapters prior to Thanksgiving/Christmas, but man am I bad at keeping to a schedule.


End file.
